Ossian Collection > Gaelic bards

236 ORIGINAL POEMS.
From iiioni to evening since his earliest youth,
Facing the task allotted him by heaven.
How unpretending was his life and poor,
And yet 't was full of something noble too,
Though passed so humbly on that lonely moor,
And I'm persuaded Angels may have caught
Themes for their praises from this cottar's acts !
The man was honest from the very first.
Although in youth he gave but little heed
To truth's great sanction and its source divine.
Perhaps he thought himself too low and mean.
And far too ignorant to turn his thoughts
Unto the cure and governance of souls;
Though in him too the eternal image lay
In lustrous fragments, as in all mankind.
But these he may have thought false, foolish toys,
Misleading men from self's more useful ways —
Thus spurning good with carnal sense away —
Thus hugging foolishness and seeming wise.
Howe'er that be, his oaths were many then.
And wild his talk, and unrestrained his wit,
And very seldom to the church went he,
Till, how it came I know not, at the last
A little seed was wafted to his mind —
A casual seed that filled his soul with fear;
Then woke he up as from a flatteiing dream,
And he looked onward, and around, and back
With eyes from which some misty scales had fallen,
And nothing saw but Power — Almighty Power —
Moved by a Spirit he partook not in.
Ah ! then he felt an awful shading gloom ;
For his past life rose like a wall of fire.
And hedged him close in his own feeble being,
With sin and terror for his visitors.
In that worst solitude man ever feels
The experienced need of sympathy divine.