Poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in The Literary Souvenir, 1831/Robert Burns and his Highland Mary
ROBERT BURNS AND HIS HIGHLAND MARY
|
ROBERT BURNS
AND HIS HIGHLAND MARY.
After a pretty long trial of the most ardent reciprocal affection, we met by appointment, on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot by the banks of Ayr, where we spent a day in taking a farewell before she should embark for the West Highlands.
Burns' Letters.
A Highland girl, a peasant he,
To whom the present made
Within itself eternity,
And the whole world that shade
Beneath the trees which gently stirred
With music on each bough,
The waving leaf, the singing-bird,
And whispers fairy low,—
A long, a bright long summer's day
Passed, like the stream beside,
Which ran in shine and song away,
Though scarcely seen to glide.
They parted—she to early rest,
And he to earn a name
A nation ranks amid her best,
And gives, what they gave, fame:
Let no one deem, that vain regret
Is in the peevish lays
Which say, too high a price is set
Upon such hard-won praise.
Look on the wrong and littleness,
The sorrow and the strife,
The hope, that every day makes less,
Of literary life;
Look on the consciousness of power,
The presence of despair,
The vision of the loftier hour,
Broken by real care;
Even as the Jewish monarch fared,
Who walked in joy or pain
Alternate, as sweet music shared
The evil spirit's reign.
But what have we to do with this?
Ours is that earlier time,
Ere the heart fevered for vain bliss,
Or the lip spoke in rhyme.
The power within him only gave
New beauty to the scene;
Linked love-thoughts with the gentle wave,
And with the forest green;
And gave the sweet and simple face
On which he gazed, a charm;—
A grace beyond all other grace,
Beyond all time to harm.
The influence of that hour appears,
When it could only seem
'Mid other loves, and hopes, and fears,
To memory, like a dream.
Still it rose beautiful and young;
A thought alone—apart—
A first creed, to which faith still clung,—
An Eden of the heart!
Ah! early love! ah! only love!
Yes, only!—what can be
Our flower below, our star above,
In after life, like thee?
Affection lingers to the last,
And we may love once more;
Morn's freshness is with morning past—
We love not as of yore.
We have grown selfish, and we know
The strength of chance and change;
For many a voice is altered now,
And many an eye grown strange.
Where is the early confidence,
Whose kindly trust depends,
Drawn from itself its inference,
On future hours and friends?
Gone, gone! so soon!—yet not in vain
Has been their sojourn here;
A fountain in the desert plain
Of memory, pure and dear.
A well of sympathy for those,
The loving and the young,
Letting not that harsh circle close
By interest round us flung.
If thus with them—the stern, the cold,
What must its charm have been
To one cast in the poet's mould,—
He of this fairy scene?
A spirit from that hour was shed,
His spell of song to be;
And if in other hearts he read,
His own heart was the key!
L. E. L.