SCENES OF INFANCY.

PART IV.

Merveilleuses histoires racontees autour du foyer, tendres epanchemens du cœur longues habitudes d'aimer si necessaires a la vie, vous avez rempli les journees de ceux qui n'ont point quitte leur pays natal. Leurs tombeaux sont dans leur patrie, avec le soleil couchant, les pleurs de leurs amis et les charmes de la religion.

ATALA.

SCENES OF INFANCY.

PART IV.

ONCE more, inconstant shadow! by my side
I see thee stalk, with vast gigantic stride,
Pause when I stop, and where I careless bend
My steps, obsequiously their course attend:

So faithless friends, that leave the wretch to mourn,
Still with the sunshine of his days return.

Yet oft, since first I left these vallies green,
I, but for thee, companionless had been.

To thee I talk'd, nor felt myself alone,

While summer-suns and living moon-beams shone.
Oft, while an infant, playful in the sun,
I hoped thy silent gambols to outrun,
And, as I view'd thee ever at my side,
To overleap thy hastening figure tried.

Oft, when with flaky snow the fields were white,
Beneath the moon I started at thy sight,
Eyed thy huge stature with suspicious mein,
And thought I had my evil genius seen.
But when I left my father's old abode,
And thou the sole companion of my road,*
As sad I paus'd, and fondly look'd behind,
And almost deem'd each face I met unkind,

[* It has been stated in the Supplement to the Memoir of Leyden, that in November, 1790, when the youthful student parted from his father, and went forward on foot to attend the University of Edinburgh, his thoughts at the time suggested afterwards these noble lines. The poor but ardent minded boy, at his outset in life, during a long journey in a brief winter day, on being left alone, addressed his shadow as it had been the "ancient spirit of his race," in a glowing form of high moral and poetical beauty.]

While kindling hopes to boding fears gave place,
Thou seem'dst the ancient spirit of my race.
In startled Fancy's ear I heard thee say,
"Ha! I will meet thee after many a day,
"When youth's impatient joys, too fierce to last,
"And fancy's wild illusions, all are past;
"Yes! I will come when scenes of youth depart,
"To ask thee for thy innocence of heart,
"To ask thee, when thou bidst this light adieu,
"Ha! wilt thou blush thy ancestors to view?"

Now, as the sun descends with westering beam,
I see thee lean across clear Teviot's stream;
Through thy dim figure, fringed with wavy gold,
Their gliding course the restless waters hold;
But, when a thousand waves have roll'd away,
The incumbent shadow suffers no decay.
Thus, wide through mortal life delusion reigns;
The substance changes, but the form remains:*
Or, if the substance still remains the same,
We see another form, and hear another name.

So, when I left sweet Teviot's woodland green, And hills, the only hills mine

eyes had seen, With what delight I hoped to mark, anew,

Each well-known object rising on my view!

Ah fruitless hope! when youth's warm light is o'er,
Can ought to come its glowing hues restore?
As lovers, absent long, with anguish trace

The marks of time on that familiar face,

Whose bright and ripening bloom could once impart
Such melting fondness to the youthful heart,

* According to the later Platonics, the material world is in a continual state of flowing and formation, but never possesses real being. It is like the image of a tree seen in a rapid stream, which has the appearance of a tree, without the reality, and which seems to continue perpetually the same, though constantly renewed by the renovation of its waters. There is an allusion to this idea in the hymn to Nature, attributed to Orpheus.