Note XVII, page 225

POÉSIES SANSERITES. Sacontala.

Écoutez, ô vous arbres de cette forêt sacrée | écoutez, et pleurez le départ de Sacontala pour le palais de l'époux I Sacontala, celle qui ne buvoit point l'onde pure avant d'avoir arrosé vos tiges; celle qui, par tendresse pour vous, ne détacha jamais une seule feuille de votre aimable verdure, quoique ses beaux cheveux en demandassent une guirlande; celle qui mettoit le plus grand de tous ses plaisirs dans cette saison qui entremêle de fleurs vos flexibles rameaux !

Chœur des Nymphes des bois.

Puissent toutes les prospérités accompagner ses pas! puissent les brises légères disperser, pour ses délices, la poussière odorante des fleurs ! puissent les lacs d'une eau claire et verdoyante sous les feuilles du lotos la rafraîchir dans sa marche 1 puissent de doux ombrages la défendre des rayons brûlants du soleil ! (Robertson's Indie.)

POÉSIE ERSE. Chant des Bardes; First Bard.

Night is dull and dark; the clouds rest on the hills; no star with green trembling beam: no moon looks from the sky. I hear the blast in the wood, but I hear it distant far. The stream of the valley murmurs, but its murmur is sullen and sad. From the tree at the grave of the dead, the longhowling owl is heard. I see a dim form on the plain! It is a ghost! It fades, it flies. Some funeral shall pass this way. The meteor marks the path.

The distant dog is howling from the but of the hill; the stag lies on the mountain moss: the hind is at his side. She hears the wind in his branchy horns. She starts, but lies again.

The roe is in the clift of the rock. The heathcock's head is beneath his wing. No beast, no bird is abroad, but the owl and the howling fox. She on a leafless tree, he in a cloud on the hill.

Dark, panting, trembling, sad, the traveller bas lost his way. Through shrubs, through thorns, he goes, along the gurgling rill; he fears the rocks and the fen. Ile fears the ghost of night. The old tree groans to the blast. The felling branch resounds. The wind drives the withered burs, clung together, along the grass. It is the light tread of a ghost! he trembles amidst

Dark, dusky, howling is night, cloudy, windy and full of ghostsI the dead are abroad 1 my friends, receive me from the night. (Ossian.)