Various - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 370, May 16, 1829

Be full ye courts, be great who will;
Search for peace with all your skill;
Open wide the lofty door,
Seek her on the marble floor;
In vain you search, she is not there;
In vain you search the domes of care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain-heads.
Along with Pleasure close ally'd,
Ever by each other's side.

Wild, sad, and solitary, amid the wave,
Iona mourns her pious founder's grave;
Still o'er his tomb these fretted columns pay
Their crumbling dust, a tribute to his clay.
Frail wreck of time! so crippled with the blast,
Recorder Of the present and the past,
Enough can tell. These Gothic arches show
The height of glory and of human woe;
Alas, 'tis all which occupies the brain,
The lust of power dyes the despot's chain,
Here Learning cast her magic beam around
Light of fair Science, whence our freedom's found,
Resistless spells, attractive power, for long
Brought princes here, and Minstrel's sung their song,
To pay a tribute to the holy sage
Their history told, it formed his faithful page;
Historic power Supreme! within this wall
Gave Bruce the crown, or Baliol the fall,
From proud Edward's grasp in a bark they bore
All Scotland's archives to a distant shore,
Manned by a hardy and a faithful crew,
For Gallia's coast the well skilled pilot drew,
But ere the orphan's eyes had lost the sail
Portending danger, screeching sea gulls wail,
In wild confusion left the angry wave
For distant Staffa's high basaltic cave,
Big heaved the flood, and loud the billows roar
In blackening heaps screened Morvem's distant shore;
High blew the winds, and quick the lightning's flash
And gilded hailstones fell with many a crash.
The story ran from sire to sire.
That Heaven itself was filled with living fire;
Of them no more is told, no more is known,
That widows' tears had scooped this hollow stone.
Here all is silent, save the murmuring sound
Of crystal spray which bathes this sacred ground,
In tuneful sorrow, sheds her friendly tear
To learned virtues, long forgotten here.
When conscience was the punisher of crime,
And blood stained ruffians of Ossian's line
Had taught redemption at the tear-worn shrine,
And barbarous tribes in thousands flocked around
To ask forgiveness on this holy ground.

In fields of light, I ride, I ride,
Upon the gust-winds back,
And, when I mark the eventide,
Or gathering of the rack;
Like spirit of a pleasant dream,
I mount upon a sunset beam,
And hie me in a flashing stride,
The dark to dash aside,

In caverns 'neath the vasty deep,
Where sea-snakes in the wreck may creep,
And feed upon man's bone;
Or in the ruins of the past.
Where thoughts that are not used are cast,
And whirlwind, and the earthquake groan
In pity, there, there, am I—
A withered thought—that cannot die.

But I was born within a light
That kindled in the womb.
And I can never feel the night
When all around is gloom;
For joy looked pleased upon my birth,
And cast a ray e'en on the earth;
And fairies spun it in a ring,
With a feather from their wing,
And called it hope—a charm for tears,
And chained it to their silken ears.

And I was formed within a light
That kindled in the womb of night,
Of loathsome withered weeds—
And fate looked on and fanned the flame,
But freed me from the touch of blame,
Of all my evil deeds.
Enchantress waited on my birth,
And bade the hypochondriac walk the earth.

Together, together, yet, O yet we dwell,
A glimpse of heaven in hell
A glimpse of heaven in hell
Which plays, which plays, like lightning on the tempest gloom,
Or life within a catacomb,
Or life within a catacomb,
Pointing the many passions' mood
To strange but universal good.