Oh! thou that roll’st above thy
glorious Fire,
Round as the shield which grac’d
my godlike Sire,
Whence are the beams, O Sun! thy endless
blaze,
Which far eclipse each minor Glory’s
rays?
Forth in thy Beauty here thou deign’st
to shine!
Night quits her car, the twinkling stars
decline;
Pallid and cold the Moon descends to cave
Her sinking beams beneath the Western
wave;
But thou still mov’st alone, of
light the Source—
Who can o’ertake thee in thy fiery
course?
Oaks of the mountains fall, the rocks
decay,
Weighed down with years the hills dissolve
away.
A certain space to yonder Moon is given,
She rises, smiles, and then is lost in
Heaven.
Ocean in sullen murmurs ebbs and flows,
But thy bright beam unchanged for ever
glows!
When Earth is darkened with tempestuous
skies,
When Thunder shakes the sphere and Lightning
flies,
Thy face, O Sun, no rolling blasts deform,
Thou look’st from clouds and laughest
at the Storm.
To Ossian, Orb of Light! thou look’st
in vain,
Nor cans’t thou glad his agèd eyes
again,
Whether thy locks in Orient Beauty stream,
Or glimmer through the West with fainter
gleam—
But thou, perhaps, like me with age must
bend;
Thy season o’er, thy days will find
their end,
No more yon azure vault with rays adorn,
Lull’d in the clouds, nor hear the
voice of Morn.
Exult, O Sun, in all thy youthful strength!
Age, dark unlovely Age, appears at length,
As gleams the moonbeam through the broken
cloud
While mountain vapours spread their misty
shroud—
The Northern tempest howls along at last,
And wayworn strangers shrink amid the
blast.
Thou rolling Sun who gild’st those
rising towers,
Fair didst thou shine upon my earlier
hours!
I hail’d with smiles the cheering
rays of Morn,
My breast by no tumultuous Passion torn—
Now hateful are thy beams which wake no
more
The sense of joy which thrill’d
my breast before;
Welcome thou cloudy veil of nightly skies,
To thy bright canopy the mourner flies:
Once bright, thy Silence lull’d
my frame to rest,
And Sleep my soul with gentle visions
blest;
Now wakeful Grief disdains her mild controul,
Dark is the night, but darker is my Soul.
Ye warring Winds of Heav’n your
fury urge,
To me congenial sounds your wintry Dirge:
Swift as your wings my happier days have
past,
Keen as your storms is Sorrow’s
chilling blast;
To Tempests thus expos’d my Fate
has been,
Piercing like yours, like yours, alas!
unseen.
1805.
[Footnote 1: From an autograph
MS. at Newstead, now for the first time printed. (See
‘Ossian’s Poems’, London, 1819, pp.
xvii. 119.)]
