PROLOGUE.
WRITTEN BY WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.
'Tis sweet to hear expiring summer's sigh,
Through forests tinged with russet, wail and die;
'Tis sweet and sad the latest notes to hear
Of distant music, dying on the ear;
But far more sadly sweet, on foreign strand,
We list the legends of our native land,
Linked as they come with every tender tie,
Memorials dear of youth and infancy.
Chief thy wild tales, romantic Caledon,
Wake keen remembrance in each hardy son;
Whether on India's burning coasts he toil,
Or till Acadia's *[1] winter-fettered soil,
He hears with throbbing heart and moisten'd eyes,
And as he hears, what dear illusions rise!
It opens on his soul his native dell,
The woods wild-waving, and the water's swell;
Tradition's theme, the tower that threats the plain,
The mossy cairn that hides the hero slain;
The cot, beneath whose simple porch was told
By grey-hair'd patriarch, the tales of old,
The infant groupe that hush'd their sports the while,
And the dear maid who listen'd with a smile.
- ↑ * Acadia, or Nova Scotia.
