TO

GEORGE ELLIS, ESQ.

WHEN dark December glooms the day,

And takes our autumn joys away;

When short and scant the sun-beam throws,

Upon the weary waste of snows,

A cold and profitless regard,

Like patron on a needy bard;

When sylvan occupation's done,

And o’er the chimney rests the gun,

And hang, in idle trophy, near,

The game-pouch, fishing-rod, and spear;

When wiry terrier, rough and grim,

And greyhound, with his length of limb,

And pointer, now employed no more,

Cumber our parlour's narrow floor;

When in his stall the impatient steed

Is long condemned to rest and feed;

When from our snow-encircled home,

Scarce cares the hardiest step to roam,

Since path is none, save that to bring

The needful water from the spring;

When wrinkled news-page, thrice con’d o’er,

Beguiles the dreary hour no more,

And darkling politician, crossed,

Inveighs against the lingering post,

And answering house-wife sore complains

Of carrier's snow-impeded wains:

When such our country cheer, I come,

Well pleased, to seek our city home;

For converse, and for books, to change

The Forest's melancholy range,

And welcome, with renewed delight,

The busy day, and social night.

Not here need my desponding rhyme

Lament the ravages of time,

As erst by Newark's riven towers,

And Ettricke stripped of forest bowers.*

True,—Caledonia's Queen is changed,

Since on her dusky summit ranged,

Within its steepy limits pent,

By bulwark, line, and battlement,

And flanking towers, and laky flood,

Guarded and garrisoned she stood,

Denying entrance or resort,

Save at each tall embattled port;

Above whose arch, suspended, hung

Portcullis spiked with iron prong.

That long is gone,—but not so long,

Since, early closed, and opening late,

Jealous revolved the studded gate;

Whose task, from eve to morning tide,

A wicket churlishly supplied.

Stern then, and steel-girt was thy brow,

Dun-Edin! O, how altered now,

When safe amid thy mountain court

Thou sitst, like Empress at her sport,

And liberal, unconfined, and free,

Flinging thy white arms to the sea,

For thy dark cloud, with umbered lower,

That hung o’er cliff, and lake, and tower,

Thou gleam’st against the western ray

Ten thousand lines of brighter day