The Libeller’s Self-Reproof^1
Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy nameShall no longer appear in the records of Fame;Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible,Says, the more ’tis a truth, sir, the more ’tis a libel!
Verses Written With A Pencil
Over the Chimney—piece in the Parlour of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth.
Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;O’er many a winding dale and painful steep,Th’ abodes of covey’d grouse and timid sheep,
My savage journey, curious, I pursue,Till fam’d Breadalbane opens to my view.—The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,The woods wild scatter’d, clothe their ample sides;Th’ outstretching lake, imbosomed ’mong the hills,The eye with wonder and amazement fills;The Tay meand’ring sweet in infant pride,The palace rising on his verdant side,The lawns wood-fring’d in Nature’s native taste,The hillocks dropt in Nature’s careless haste,The arches striding o’er the new-born stream,The village glittering in the noontide beam—
Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,Lone wand’ring by the hermit’s mossy cell;The sweeping theatre of hanging woods,Th’ incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods—
Here Poesy might wake her heav’n-taught lyre,And look through Nature with creative fire;Here, to the wrongs of Fate half reconcil’d,Misfortunes lighten’d steps might wander wild;And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,Find balm to soothe her bitter, rankling wounds:Here heart-struck Grief might heav’nward stretch her scan,And injur’d Worth forget and pardon man.
These are rhymes of dubious authenticity.—Lang. ↩