Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/55

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There—that is delicious. It has a freshness about it au of the atmosphere after a summer shower, and breathes, moreover, through every verse a most bewitching me- lody. Why you can almost hear the lark, aye! even sce his tiny form far up in the sunny ether.

But exquisitely as the poct has sung of love he has warbled not less sweetly on other themes, We would that we might quote « piece entitled “Midnight and Moonshine,” but we can find space only for the first six verses; and we give them more for an incentive to buy the book und read the rest, than for aught else. All earth below, all heaven above, In this calm hour, are filled with love; ‘All sights, all sounds have throbbing hearts, In which its blessed fountnin starts, And gushes forth so fresh and free, Like a svul-thrilling melody.” These have been gladsome themts, but there are me- lencholy ones enow in the. volume ; end indeed the finest pooma of our author are his pathetic ones. Little aa we now of Motherwell, of one thing we are certain—he had soon suffering. No one can peruse his verses be- ginning “0, agony ! keon agony,” without fecling tl His stanzas, “ What is glory? what is fame?” and the tines written a few days before his death breathe all the disconsolateness of a broken heart. But nowhere has the author displayed more real pathos than in his two poems, “Jeanie Morrison” and “My heid is like to rend, ‘Willie’"—poems which alone ere sufficient to make Mo- therwell immortal. Often as they have been quoted in this country—and indeed they are nearly the sole poems by which he is known in the United States—we cannot resist the temptation of inserting at least one of them here, Let it be Jeanie Morrison. We give it without a word of comment, reading it in holy silence to ourselves. “I've wandered east, I’ve wandered west, ‘Through mony a weary way; Bat never, never can forget “The luve o' life's young day! "The Bre that's blawn on Beltane e’eu, May weel be black gin Yule; But blacker fa’ awaits the heart ‘Where firat oud luve grows cule.

O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison, ‘Phe thochts of bygane years Still fing their shadows ower my path, And blind my e'en, wi" tears:

‘They blind my een wi’ gout, saut tears, ‘And suir and sick I pine, Ag memory idly sunmona up ‘The blithe blinks o” langeyne,

"Twas then we luvit ilk ither weel, T was then we twa did part; Sweet time—ead time! twa bairns at scule, “Twa bairne, and bnt ae heart?

"Twas then we sat on ae laigh bink, ‘To leit ilk ithor lear And tones, and Jooke, and smiles wore shed, Remembered evermair.

I wonder, Jeanie, aften yet, ‘When sitting on that dink, Cheek touchin’ check, loof locked in loof, ‘Whit our wee heads could think! ‘When baith bent doun ower ae braid page, Wi? ae buik on our knee, ‘Thy lips were,on thy lesson, but My lessuu was in thee,

O, mind ye how we hung our heads, How cheeks brent red wi’ shaine, Wirene’er the soule-weans laughin’ said, We cleekd thegither hame¢ And mind ye 0° the Saturdays, (The seule then skail't st noon.) ‘When we ran aff to apeel the braee— ‘The broomy bracs o' June?

‘My head rUns round aru round about, ‘My heart flows like a sea, ‘Ag ane by ane the thochts rush back O' scule-time and o* thee. O, mornin’ fife! O, monn’ lave! O lichtsome days aud lang, When hinnied hopes arowad our hearts Like siatwer blossoms sprang!

O, mind ye, Juve, how aft we left The deavin' dinsome toun, ‘To wander by the green burnside, ‘And hear ite waters cron? ‘The siminer leaves hung ower our heads, "The flowers burst round our feet, And im the gloumnin o! the wuod, The throvuil whuss lit sweet;

The throssil whuas lit in the wood, The burn sau to the trees, Aud we with Nature’s heart intune, Concerted harmonic ‘And on the knowe abune the burn, ‘The ours thegither sat In the wilentaces 0 joy, till baith ‘Wi very gladness grat.

Ay, ay, dear Jeanie Morrison, Tears twinkled doun your cheek, Like dow-beads on a rore, yet nane Had ony power to speak! ‘That was a time, a blessed time, ‘Wrheu hearts were fresh and young, When freely gushed all feelings forth, Uneybableg— nnsinig !

I marvel, Jeanie Morrison, Gin I hae been to thee Ae closely twined wi’ earliest thuchte, ‘As ye hae been to me?

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