Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/35

Rh Even as the falcon high, and halt Furth fleeing in the skye, With wanton wing hir game to gaif, Disdaines her caller's cry; So led away with liberty, And drowned in delight, I wandred after vanitie My vice I give the wight.

But by far the most beautiful composition in the collection, is that entitled the " Day Estival," the one which Leyden has thought worthy of revival. This poem presents a description of the progress and effects of a summer day in Scotland, accompanied by the reflections of a mind full of natural piety, and a delicate perception of the beauties of the physical world. The easy flow of the numbers, distinguishing it from the harsher productions of the same age, and the arrangement of the terms and ideas, prove an acquaintance with English poetry; but the subject and the poetical thoughts are entirely the author's own. They speak strongly of the elegant and fastidious mind, tired of the bar, and disgusted with the court, finding a balm to the wounded spirit, in being alone with nature, and watching her progress. The style has an unrestrained freedom which may please the present age, and the contemplative feeling thrown over the whole, mingled with the artless vividness of the descriptions, bringing the objects immediately before the eye, belong to a species of poetry at which some of the highest minds have lately made it their study to aim. We shall quote the commencing stanza, and a few others scattered in different parts of the Poem:

O perfect light! which shed away
 * The darkness from the light,

And left one ruler o'er the day,
 * Another o'er the night.

Thy glory, when the day forth flies,
 * More vively does appear

Nor at mid-day unto our eyes
 * The shining sun is clear.


 * The shadow of the earth anone
 * Removes and drawis by;

Syne in the east, when it is gone,
 * Appears a clearer sky:

Which soon perceives the little larks,
 * The lapwing, and the snipe;

And tunes their songs, like nature's clerks,
 * Our meadow, moor, and stripe.

The time so tranquil is and still,
 * That no where shall ye find,

Save on a high and barren hill,
 * An air of passing wind.

All trees and simples, great and small,
 * That balmy leaf do bear,

Nor they were painted on a wall
 * No more they move or stir.

Calm is the deep and purpour sea,
 * Yea smoother nor the sand: