To Dr. Thomas Shearer.

"To-day the woods are trembling through and through     With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,     Then melt in green as dawn-stars me"

"My soul is like the oar that momently     Dies in a desperate stress beneath the wave,     Then glitters out again and sweeps the sea:     Each"

"At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,     When far within the spirit's hearing rolls     The great soft rumble of the course of thing"

"By the Eldest Grandson.     A rainbow span of fifty years,     Painted upon a cloud of tears,     In blue for hopes and red for fears,"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"