LVI.

Is there a heart that music cannot melt ?

Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn!
Is there, who ne'er those mystic transports felt
Of solitude and melancholy born?

He needs not woo the Muse; he is her scorn.

The sophist's rope of cobweb he shall twinè;
Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page; or mourn,
And delve for life in Mammon's dirty mine;

Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or grunt with glutton swine.

LVII.

For Edwin Fate a nobler doom had plann'd;
Song was his favourite and first pursuit.

The wild harp rang to his adventurous hand,
And languish'd to his breath the plaintive flute.
His infant muse, though artless, was not mute:
Of elegance as yet he took no care;

For this of time and culture is the fruit;
And Edwin gain'd at last this fruit so rare:
As in some future verse I purpose to declare.

LVIII.

Meanwhile, whate'er of beautiful, or new,
Sublime, or dreadful, in earth, sea, or sky,
By chance, or search, was offer'd to his view,
He scan'd with curious and romantic eye.
Whate'er of lore tradition could supply
From Gothic tale, or song, or fable old,
Roused him, still keen to listen and to pry.
At last, though long by penury control'd,
And solitude, his soul her graces 'gan unfold.

LIX.

Thus on the chill Lapponian's dreary land,
For many a long month lost in snow profound,
When Sol from Cancer sends the season bland,
And in their northern cave the storms are bound;
From silent mountains, straight, with startling sound,
Torrents are hurl'd; green hills emerge; and lo,
The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crown'd;
Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling go;

And wonder, love, and joy, the peasant's heart o'erflow*.

Spring and Autumn are hardly known to the Laplanders. About the time the sun enters Cancer, their fields, which a week before were covered with snow, appear on a sudden full of grass and flowers. Scheffer's History of Lapland, p. 16.

LX.

Here pause, my Gothic lyre, a little while.
The leisure hour is all that thou canst claim.
But if ***** on this labour smile,

New strains erelong shall animate thy frame.
And his applause to me is more than fame;
For still with truth accords his taste refined.
At lucre or renown let others aim,

I only wish to please the gentle mind,

Whom Nature's charms inspire, and love of humankind.

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