Note 321:A — Chapter IX · (continued 2)
Reading edition
Scenes of Infancy, book ii. pp. 71-73. This poem abounds in passages of exquisite pathos and splendid imagination. The book, whence the lines just quoted are taken, closes with the following apostrophe to Mr. Scott:—
"O Scott! with whom, in youth's serenest prime, I wove, with careless hand, the fairy rhyme, Bade chivalry's barbaric pomp return, And heroes wake from every mouldering urn! Thy powerful verse, to grace the courtly hall, Shall many a tale of elder time recall, The deeds of knights, the loves of dames, proclaim, And give forgotten bards their former fame. Enough for me, if Fancy wake the shell, To eastern minstrels strains like thine to tell; Till saddening memory all our haunts restore, The wild-wood walks by Esk's romantic shore, The circled hearth, which ne'er was wont to fail In cheerful joke, or legendary tale, Thy mind, whose fearless frankness nought could move, Thy friendship, like an elder brother's love, While from each scene of early life I part, True to the beatings of this ardent heart, When, half-deceased, with half the world between, My name shall be unmentioned on the green, When years combine with distance, let me be, By all forgot, remembered yet by thee!"
If Mr. Scott, yielding to this appeal, would present us with a complete edition of the poetical works, together with a life, of his lamented friend, who was not less remarkable for his learning than his genius, he would confer no trifling obligation on the literary world.