Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocksShun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,The gathering floods burst o’er the distant plains;Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan;The hollow caves return a hollow moan.Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves,Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye,Sad to your sympathetic glooms I fly;Where, to the whistling blast and water’s roar,Pale Scotia’s recent wound I may deplore.12
O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear!A loss these evil days can ne’er repair!Justice, the high vicegerent of her God,Her doubtful balance eyed, and sway’d her rod:Hearing the tidings of the fatal blow,She sank, abandon’d to the wildest woe.18
Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den,Now, gay in hope, explore the paths of men:See from his cavern grim Oppression rise,And throw on Poverty his cruel eyes;Keen on the helpless victim see him fly,And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry:Mark Ruffian Violence, distained with crimes,Rousing elate in these degenerate times,View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,As guileful Fraud points out the erring way:While subtle Litigation’s pliant tongueThe life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong:Hark, injur’d Want recounts th’ unlisten’d tale,And much-wrong’d Mis’ry pours the unpitied wail!32
Ye dark waste hills, ye brown unsightly plains,Congenial scenes, ye soothe my mournful strains:Ye tempests, rage! ye turbid torrents, roll!Ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul.Life’s social haunts and pleasures I resign;Be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine,To mourn the woes my country must endure—That would degenerate ages cannot cure.40