Oh! spare to sweep, thou mournful blast,

His grave grass-grown.

There, too, a Son, his joy and pride, (Not three weeks past the Stripling died,) Lies gathered to his Father's side,

Soul-moving sight!

Yet one to which is not denied
Some sad delight.

For he is safe, a quiet bed

Hath early found among the dead, Harboured where none can be misled, Wronged, or distrest:

And surely here it may be said

That such are blest.

And oh for Thee, by pitying grace
Checked oft-times in a devious race,
May He who halloweth the place
Where Man is laid
Receive thy Spirit in the embrace
For which it prayed!

Sighing I turned away; but ere
Night fell I heard, or seemed to hear,
Music that sorrow comes not near,
A ritual hymn.

Chaunted in love that casts out fear
By Seraphim.

III. THOUGHTS

SUGGESTED THE DAY FOLLOWING, ON THE BANKS OF NITH, NEAR THE POET'S RESIDENCE.

Too frail to keep the lofty vow

That must have followed when his brow Was wreathed-"The Vision" tells us how-With holly spray,

He faultered, drifted to and fro,

And passed away.

Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng
Our minds when, lingering all too long,
Over the grave of Burns we hung

In social grief

Indulged as if it were a wrong
To seek relief.

But, leaving each unquiet theme

Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,
And prompt to welcome every gleam
Of good and fair,
Let us beside this limpid Stream

Breathe hopeful air.
Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the consciousness of right

His course was true,
When Wisdom prospered in his sight
And virtue grew.

Yes, freely let our hearts expand,
Freely as in youth's season bland,
When side by side, his Book in hand,

We wont to stray,
Our pleasure varying at command
Of each sweet Lay.

How oft inspired must he have trode
These pathways, yon far-stretching road!
There lurks his home; in that Abode,
With mirth elate,

Or in his nobly-pensive mood,
The Rustic sate.

Proud thoughts that Image overawes,
Before it humbly let us pause,
And ask of Nature, from what cause
And by what rules

She trained her Burns to win applause
That shames the Schools.

Through busiest street and loneliest glen
Are felt the flashes of his pen :

He rules mid winter snows, and when
Bees fill their hives:

Deep in the general heart of men

His power survives.

AFTER VISITING THE GRAVE OF THEIR FATHER.

"The Poet's grave is in a corner of the churchyard. We looked at it with melancholy and painful reflections, repeating to each other his own verses

"Is there a man whose judgment clear,' &c." --Extract from the Journal of my Fellowtraveller.

'MID crowded obelisks and urns

I sought the untimely grave of Burns;
Sons of the Bard, my heart still mourns
With sorrow true;

And more would grieve, but that it turns
Trembling to you!

Through twilight shades of good and ill
Ye now are panting up life's hill,
And more than common strength and skill
Must ye display:

If ye would give the better will

Its lawful sway.

174

THE BRAES OF KIRTLE.*
FAIR Ellen Irwin, when she sate
Upon the braes of Kirtle,
Was lovely as a Grecian maid
Adorned with wreaths of myrtle:
Young Adam Bruce beside her lay,
And there did they beguile the day
With love and gentle speeches,
Beneath the budding beeches.
From many knights and many squires
The Bruce had been selected;
And Gordon, fairest of them all,
By Ellen was rejected.

Sad tidings to that noble Youth!
For it may be proclaimed with truth,
If Bruce hath loved sincerely,
That Gordon loves as dearly.

But what are Gordon's form and face,
His shattered hopes and crosses,
To them, 'mid Kirtle's pleasant braes,
Reclined on flowers and mosses?
Alas that ever he was born!
The Gordon, couched behind a thorn,
Sees them and their caressing;
Beholds them blest and blessing.
Proud Gordon, maddened by the thoughts
That through his brain are travelling,
Rushed forth, and at the heart of Bruce
He launched a deadly javelin!
Fair Ellen saw it as it came,

The Kirtle is a river in the southern part of Scotland, on the banks of which the events here related took place.

And, starting up to meet the same,
Did with her body cover
The Youth, her chosen lover.
And, falling into Bruce's arms,
Thus died the beauteous Ellen,
Thus, from the heart of her True-love,
The mortal spear repelling.
And Bruce, as soon as he had slain
The Gordon, sailed away to Spain.
And fought with rage incessant
Against the Moorish crescent.
But many days and many months,
And many years ensuing,

This wretched Knight did vainly seek
The death that he was wooing.
So, coming his last help to crave,
Heart-broken, upon Ellen's grave
His body he extended,

And there his sorrow ended.
Now ye, who willingly have heard
The tale I have been telling,
May in Kitkonnel churchyard view
The grave of lovely Ellen:
By Ellen's side the Bruce is laid;
And, for the stone upon his head,
May no rude hand deface it,
And its forlorn Pic jacct!

VI.

TO A HIGHLAND GIRL.

(AT INVERSNEYDE, UPON LOCH LOMOND.)
SWEET Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head:

And these grey rocks; that household lawn;
Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn ;
This fall of water that doth make
A murinur near the silent lake;
This little bay; a quiet road
That holds in shelter thy Abode-
In truth together do ye seem
Like something fashioned in a dream;
Such Forms as from their covert peep
When earthly cares are laid asleep!
But, O fair Creature! in the light
Of common day, so heavenly bright,
I bless Thee, Vision as thou art,
I bless thee with a human heart;
God shield thee to thy latest years!
Thee, neither know I, nor thy peers:
And yet my eyes are filled with tears.
With earnest feeling I shall pray
For thee when I am far away:
For never saw I mien, or face,
In which more plainly I could trace
Benignity and home-bred sense
Ripening in perfect innocence.
Here scattered, like a random seed,
Remote from men, Thou dost not need
The embarrassed look of shy distress,
And maidenly shamefacedness:
Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear
The freedom of a Mountaineer:
A face with gladness overspread!
Soft smiles, by human kindness bred!
And seemliness complete, that sways
Thy courtesies, about thee plays;

With no restraint, but such as springs
From quick and eager visitings
Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
Of thy few words of English speech:
A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife
That gives thy gestures grace and life!
So have I, not unmoved in mind,
Seen birds of tempest-loving kind-
Thus beating up against the wind.
What hand but would a garland cull
For thee who art so beautiful?
O happy pleasure! here to dwell
Beside thee in some heathy dell;
Adopt your homely ways and dress,
A Shepherd, thou a Shepherdess!
But I could frame a wish for thee
More like a grave reality:
Thou art to me but as a wave
Of the wild sea; and I would have
Some claim upon thee, if I could,
Though but of common neighbourhood.
What joy to hear thee, and to see!
Thy elder Brother I would be,
Thy Father-anything to thee!

Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace
Hath led me to this lonely place.
Joy have I had; and going hence

bear away my recompence.
In spots like these it is we prize
Our Memory, feel that she hath eyes:
Then, why should I be loth to stir?
I feel this place was made for her:
To give new pleasure like the past,
Continued long as life shall last.

Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
Sweet Highland Girl! from thee to part;
For I, methinks, till I grow old,
As fair before me shall behold
As I do now the cabin small,
The lake, the bay, the waterfall;
And Thee, the Spirit of them all!

VII.

GLEN-ALMAIN;
OR,

THE NARROW GLEN.

IN this still place, remote from men,
Sleeps Ossian, in the NARROW GLEN;
In this still place, where murmurs on
But one meek streamlet, only one:
He sang of battles, and the breath
Of stormy war, and violent death;
And should, methinks, when all was past,
Have rightfully been laid at last

Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent
As by a spirit turbulent;

Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,

And everything unreconciled:

In some

e complaining, dim retreat, For fear and melancholy meet: But this is calm; there cannot be A more entire tranquillity.

Does then the Bard sleep here indeed? Or is it but a groundless creed? What matters it?-I blame them not Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot Was moved; and in such way expressed

Their notion of its perfect rest.
A convent, even a hermit's cell,
Would break the silence of this Dell:
It is not quiet, is not ease;
But something deeper far than these:
The separation that is here
Is of the grave; and of austere
Yet happy feelings of the dead:
And, therefore, was it rightly said
That Ossian, last of all his race!
Lies buried in this lonely place.

VIII.

STEPPING WESTWARD. While my Fellow traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sunset, in our road to a Hut where, in the course of our Tour, we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What, you are stepping westward?"

"WHAT, you are stepping westward?"-
"Yea."

-Twould be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange Land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?
The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:

I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound
Of something without place or bound:
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.
The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native lake:
The salutation had to me

The very sound of courtesy:
Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing Sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.

IX.

THE SOLITARY REAPER. BEHOLD her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound. No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?-
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending :-
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

X. ADDRESS ΤΟ

KILCHURN CASTLE, UPON LOCH AWE.

"From the top of the hill a most impressive scene opened upon our view,-a ruined Castle on an Island (for an Island the flood had made it) at some distance from the shore, backed by a Cove of the Mountain Cruachan, down which came a foaming stream. The Castle Occupied every foot of the Island that was visible to us, appearing to rise out of the water,-mists rested upon the mountain side, with spots of sunshine; there was a mild desolation in the low grounds, a solemn grandeur in the mountains, and the Castle was wild, yet stately-not dismantled of turretsnor the walls broken down, though obviously a ruin."-Extract from the Journal of my Companion.

CHILD of loud-throated War! the mountain
Stream

Roars in thy hearing; but thy hour of rest
Is come, and thou art silent in thy age;
Save when the wind sweeps by and sounds are

caught

Ambiguous, neither wholly thine nor theirs.
Oh! there is life that breathes not; Powers

there are

That touch each other to the quick in modes Which the gross world no sense hath to per

ceive,

No soul to dream of. What art Thou, from

care

Cast off-abandoned by thy rugged Sire,
Nor by soft Peace adopted; though, in place
And in dimension, such that thou might'st seem
But a mere footstool to yon sovereign Lord,
Huge Cruachan, (a thing that meaner hills
Might crush, nor know that it had suffered
harm ;)

Yet he, not loth, in favour of thy claims
To reverence, suspends his own; submitting
All that the God of Nature hath conferred,
All that he holds in common with the stars,
To the memorial majesty of Time
Impersonated in thy calm decay!

Take, then, thy seat, Vicegerent unreproved!
Now, while a farewell gleam of evening light

Is fondly lingering on thy shattered front,
Do thou, in turn, be paramount; and rule
Over the pomp and beauty of a scene
Whose mountains, torrents, lake, and woods,
unite

To pay thee homage; and with these are joined,
In willing admiration and respect,

Two Hearts, which in thy presence might be called

Youthful as Spring. -Shade of departed Power,
Skeleton of unfleshed humanity,

The chronicle were welcome that should call
Into the compass of distinct regard
The toils and struggles of thy infant years!
Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice;
Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye,
Frozen by distance; so, majestic Pile,
To the perception of this Age, appear
Thy fierce beginnings, softened and subdued
And quieted in character-the strife,
The pride, the fury uncontrollable,
Lost on the aerial heights of the Crusades!*

XI.

ROB ROY'S GRAVE.

The history of Rob Roy is sufficiently known; his grave is near the head of Loch Ketterine, in one of those small pinfold-like Burialgrounds, of neglected and desolate appear. ance, which the traveller meets with in the Highlands of Scotland.

A FAMOUS man is Robin Hood,
The English ballad-singer's joy!
And Scotland has a thief as good,
An outlaw of as daring mood;
She has her brave Roв ROY!

Then clear the weeds from off his Grave,
And let us chant a passing stave,
In honour of that Hero brave!
Heaven gave Rob Roy a dauntless heart
And wondrous length and strength of arm:
Nor craved he more to quell his foes,

Or keep his friends from harm. Yet was Rob Roy as wise as brave. Forgive me if the phrase be strong;A Poet worthy of Rob Roy

Must scorn a timid song.

Say, then, that he was wise as brave;
As wise in thought as bold in deed:
For in the principles of things

He sought his moral creed.
Said generous Rob, "What need of books?
Burn all the statutes and their shelves:
They stir us up against our kind;

And worse, against ourselves.
We have a passion-make a law,
Too false to guide us or control!
And for the law itself we fight

In bitterness of soul.
And, puzzled, blinded thus, we lose
Distinctions that are plain and few:
These find I graven on my heart:

That tells me what to do.

*The tradition is, that the Castle was built by a Lady during the absence of her Lord in Palestine.

The creatures see of flood and field,
And those that travel on the wind!
With them no strife can last; they live
In peace, and peace of mind.

For why?-because the good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.

A lesson that is quickly learned,
A signal this which all can see!
Thus nothing here provokes the strong
To wanton cruelty.

All freakishness of mind is checked
He tamed, who foolishly aspires;
While to the measure of his might

Each fashions his desires.

All kinds, and creatures, stand and fall
By strength of prowess or of wit:
'Tis God's appointment who must sway,
And who is to submit.

Since, then, the rule of right is plain,
And longest life is but a day;

To have my ends, maintain my rights,
I'll take the shortest way."

4

And thus among these rocks he lived,
Through summer heat and winter snow:
The Eagle, he was lord above,

And Rob was lord below.

So was it would, at least, have been
But through untowardness of fate;
For Polity was then too strong-
He came an age too late;

Or shall we say an age too soon?
For, were the bold Man living now,
How might he flourish in his pride,

With buds on every bough!
Then rents and factors, rights of chase,
Sheriffs, and lairds and their domains,
Would all have seemed but paltry things,
Not worth a moment's pains.
Rob Roy had never lingered here,
To these few meagre Vales confined;"
But thought how wide the world, the times
How fairly to his mind!

And to his Sword he would have said,

Do Thou my sovereign will enact From land to land through half the earth' Judge thou of law and fact ! 'Tis fit that we should do our part, Becoming, that mankind should learn That we are not to be surpassed

In fatherly concern.

Of old things all are over old,

Of good things none are good enough:-
We'll show that we can help to frame
A world of other stuff.

I, too, will have my kings that take
From me the sign of life and death:
Kingdoms shall shift about, like clouds,
Obedient to my breath.'

And, if the word had been fulfilled,
As might have been, then, thought of joy!
France would have had her present Boast,
And we our own Rob Roy !
Oh! say not so ; compare them not;

I would not wrong thee, Champion brave!

Would wrong thee nowhere; least of all Here standing by thy grave.

For Thou, although with some wild thoughts,
Wild Chieftain of a savage Clan!
Hadst this to boast of; thou didst love
The liberty of man.

And, had it been thy lot to live
With us who now behold the light,
Thou would'st have nobly stirred thyself,
And battled for the Right.

For thou wert still the poor man's stay,
The poor man's heart, the poor man's hand;
And all the oppressed, who wanted strength,
Had thine at their command.

Bear witness many a pensive sigh
Of thoughtful Herdsman when he strays
Alone upon Loch Vool's heights,

And by Loch Lomond's braes!
And, far and near, through vale and hill,
Are faces that attest the same;

The proud heart flashing through the eyes,
At sound of ROB ROY's name.

XII. SONNET.

COMPOSED AT CASTLE.

DEGENERATE Douglas! oh, the unworthy Lord!
Whom mere despite of heart could so far please,
And love of havoc, (for with such disease
Fame taxes him,) that he could send forth word
To level with the dust a noble horde,
A brotherhood of venerable Trees,
Leaving an ancient dome, and towers like these,
Beggared and outraged!-Many hearts deplored
The fate of those old Trees; and oft with pain
The traveller, at this day, will stop and gaze
On wrongs, which Nature scarcely seems to
heed:

For sheltered places, bosoms, nooks, and bays,
And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed,
And the green silent pastures, yet remain.

XIII.

YARROW UNVISITED. (See the various Poems the scene of which is laid upon the banks of the Yarrow; in par-" ticular, the exquisite Ballad of Hamilton beginning

"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny Bride, Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome Marrow!"-)

FROM Stirling castle we had seen
The mazy Forth unravelled;
Had trod the banks of Clyde, and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travelled;
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said my "winsome Marrow,"
"Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside,
And see the Braes of Yarrow."
"Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own;
Each maiden to her dwelling!
On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,
Hares couch, and rabbits burrow!
But we will downward with the Tweed,
Nor turn aside to Yarrow.

There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,
Both lying right before us;

M