Poetical Recreation

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1870 Excerpt: ... A VISION. Come bright improvement on the car of time. Campbell. Stern region on the Pentland wave, That oft hath been the seaman's grave, The pirate's home--That erst had own'd the Norseman's sway, Where beetling cliffs sport with the spray, And billows foam!--Where chief among the mountain band, As giant guardian of the strand, Bleak Hoy uprears His hoary scalp in misty hood, Above the surges of the flood Of thousand years. Land of the sea-girt group afar, Beneath the rigid northern star, Of ancient name--Wild scenes of many a legend bold, Of relics mystic, grim, and old, Enroll'd by Fame!--Land of the stormy firth my theme! Well--in the night I had a dream 'Bout these our isles, Revealed first in shades of gloom, And then in scenes that seem'd to loom In radiant smiles. The time was past, ere art and skill Had sought their mission to fulfil These coasts around--Ere yet our fathers had been wise, And in the path of enterprise A footing found. I seem'd to travel, aye, and pass Through muir and dale and drear morass, From shore to shore--On some strange errand, which begun, I keenly wished how soon 'twere done--And toils were o'er. On every side I saw the land Crushed by Oppression's iron hand--While woful Blight Spread its dread cov'ring over all, As with a dull and sombrous pall, Or shades of night. I saw the virtues of the good Trampl'd beneath Injustice rude--And cease to rise; For Liberty was but a name, Amid Enslavement's want and shame, And many sighs. Less wonder, Desolation lent Its dreary sights where'er I went, A trackless way--'Mid low'ring cloud of every form, 'Mid drizzling fog and driving storm, In fierce array. The plains a lengthen'd solitude--The circling hills around the flood So bleakly grand--And wild the look across the seas Of these ...