ays
Of flooding sunlight, tinging the hoar bark
Of the old pine-trees, and in crimson dyes
Bathing the waste of flowers that sprang beneath;
It was an hour of Paradise restored--
Eden forth mirror'd to the view again,
As yet ere Happiness forsook its bowers,
Or sinless creatures own'd the sway of death.
All was repose--and peace--and harmony;
The flocks upon the soft knolls resting lay,
Or straying nibbled at the pastures green;
Up from its clovery lurking-place, the hare
Arose; the pheasant from the coppice stray'd;
The cony from its hole disporting leapt;
The cattle in the bloomy meadows lay
Ruminant; the shy foal scarcely swerved aside
At our approach from under the tall tree
Of his delight, shaking his forelocks long
In wanton play; while, overhead, his hymn,
As 'twere to herald the approach of night,
With all her gathering stars, the blackbird sang
Melodiously, mellifluously, and Earth
Look'd up, reflecting back the smiles of Heaven!
For Innocence, o'er hill and dale again
Seem'd to have spread her mantle, and the voice
Of all but joy in grove and glade was hush'd.

VII.

Thro' the deep glen of Roslin--where arise
Proud castle and chapelle of high St Clair,
And Scotland's prowess speaking--we had traced
The mazy Esk by cavern'd Hawthornden,
Perch'd like an eagle's nest upon the cliffs,
And eloquent for aye with Drummond's song--
Through Melville's flowery glades--and down the park
Of fair Dalkeith, scaring the antler'd deer
'Neath the huge oaks of Morton and of Monk,
Whispering, as stir their boughs the midnight winds.
These left behind, with purpling evening, now
We stood beside St Michael's holy fane,
With its nine centuries of gravestones girt;
And, from the slopes of Inveresk, gazed down
Upon the Frith of Forth, whose waveless tide
Glow'd like a plain of fire. In majesty,
O'ercanopied with many-vestured clouds,
The mighty sun, low in the farthest west,
With orb dilated, o'er the Grampian chain,
Mountain up-piled on mountain, huge and blue,
Was shedding his last rays, adorn'd the shores
Of Fife, with all its towns, and woods, and fields,
And bathing Ben-Ean and Ben-Ledi's peaks
In hues of amethyst. Ray after ray,
From the twin Lomond's conic heights declined,
And died awa