Written In A Blank Leaf Of Macpherson's Ossian

  OFT have I caught, upon a fitful breeze,
  Fragments of far-off melodies,
  With ear not coveting the whole,
  A part so charmed the pensive soul.
  While a dark storm before my sight
  Was yielding, on a mountain height
  Loose vapours have I watched, that won
  Prismatic colours from the sun;
  Nor felt a wish that heaven would show
  The image of its perfect bow.
  What need, then, of these finished Strains?
  Away with counterfeit Remains!
  An abbey in its lone recess,
  A temple of the wilderness,
  Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling
  The majesty of honest dealing.
  Spirit of Ossian! if imbound
  In language thou may'st yet be found,
  If aught (intrusted to the pen
  Or floating on the tongues of men, 
  Albeit shattered and impaired)
  Subsist thy dignity to guard,
  In concert with memorial claim
  Of old grey stone, and high-born name
  That cleaves to rock or pillared cave
  Where moans the blast, or beats the wave,
  Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,
  Interpret that Original,
  And for presumptuous wrongs atone;--
  Authentic words be given, or none! 
  Time is not blind;--yet He, who spares
  Pyramid pointing to the stars,
  Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
  On all that marked the primal flight
  Of the poetic ecstasy
  Into the land of mystery.
  No tongue is able to rehearse
  One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
  Musaeus, stationed with his lyre
  Supreme among the Elysian quire,
  Is, for the dwellers upon earth,
  Mute as a lark ere morning's birth.
  Why grieve for these, though past away
  The music, and extinct the lay?
  When thousands, by severer doom,
  Full early to the silent tomb
  Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
  From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
  The garland withering on their brows;
  Stung with remorse for broken vows; 
  Frantic--else how might they rejoice?
  And friendless, by their own sad choice!
  Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you
  I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
  Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
  Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
  Whose lofty genius could survive
  Privation, under sorrow thrive;
  In whom the fiery Muse revered
  The symbol of a snow-white beard, 
  Bedewed with meditative tears
  Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.
  Brothers in soul! though distant times
  Produced you nursed in various climes,
  Ye, when the orb of life had waned,
  A plenitude of love retained:
  Hence, while in you each sad regret
  By corresponding hope was met,
  Ye lingered among human kind,
  Sweet voices for the passing wind, 
  Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
  Though smiling on the last hill top!
  Such to the tender-hearted maid
  Even ere her joys begin to fade;
  Such, haply, to the rugged chief
  By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief;
  Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
  Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore,
  The Son of Fingal; such was blind
  Maeonides of ampler mind;
  Such Milton, to the fountain head
  Of glory by Urania led!