Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill,
All, all is peaceful, all is still,

As if thy waves, since Time was born,
Since first they roll'd upon the Tweed,
Had only heard the shepherd's reed,
Nor started at the bugle-horn.

Unlike the tide of human time,

Which, though it change in ceaseless flow, Retains each grief, retains each crime,

Its earliest course was doom'd to know; And, darker as it downward bears, Is stain'd with past and present tears. Low as that tide has ebb'd with me, It still reflects to Memory's eye The hour my brave, my only boy,

Fell by the side of great Dundee. Why, when the volleying musket play'd Against the bloody Highland blade, Why was not I beside him laid! Enough-he died the death of fame; Enough he died with conquering Græme.

*

Call it not vain: they do not err

Who say, that when the poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies:
Who say tall cliff and cavern lone
For the departed bard make moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm distil;
Through his loved groves that breezes sigh,
And oaks, in deeper groan, reply;
And rivers teach their rushing wave
To murmur dirges round his grave.

Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn
Those things inanimate can mourn;
But that the stream, the wood, the gale,
Is vocal with the plaintive wail

Of those who, else forgotten long,
Lived in the poet's faithful song,
And, with the poet's parting breath,
Whose memory feels a second death.
The maid's pale shade, who wails her lot,
That love, true love, should be forgot,
From rose and hawthorn shakes the tear
Upon the gentle minstrel's bier :
The phantom knight, his glory fled,
Mourns o'er the field he heap'd with dead;
Mounts the wild blast that sweeps amain,
And shrieks along the battle-plain :
The chief, whose antique crownlet long
Still sparkled in the feudal song,

Now, from the mountain's misty throne,
Sees, in the thanedom once his own,
His ashes undistinguish'd lie,

His place, his power, his memory die :
His groans the lonely caverns fill,
His tears of rage impel the rill :

All mourn the minstrel's harp unstrung,
Their name unknown, their praise unsung.

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,

From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung. VOL. II.-T

Oh Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band

That knits me to thy rugged strand!
Still, as I view each well-known scene,

Think what is now, and what hath been,
Seems as, to me, of all bereft,

Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
And thus I love them better still,

Even in extremity of ill.

By Yarrow's streams still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my wither'd cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot Stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The bard may draw his parting groan.

Oh listen, listen, ladies gay!

No haughty feat of arms I tell; Soft is the note, and sad the lay,

That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

"Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And, gentle ladye, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,

Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

"The blackening wave is edged with white; To inch and rock the sea-mews fly; The fishers have heard the water-sprite, Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh. "Last night the gifted seer did view

A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay; Then stay thee, fair, in Ravensheuch: Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?"

""Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
To-night at Roslin leads the ball,
But that my ladye-mother there

Sits lonely in her castle hall.

""Tis not because the ring they ride,
And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will chide,
If 'tis not fill'd by Rosabelle."

O'er Roslin all that dreary night

A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; "Twas broader than the watchfire's light, And redder than the bright moonbeam. It glared on Roslin's castled rock,

It ruddied all the copsewood glen;
"Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak,
And seen from cavern'd Hawthornden.

Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud,
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie,
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.

Seem'd all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,

And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail.
Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair,
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle,
Each one the holy vault doth hold,
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

And each St. Clair was buried there,
With candle, with book, and with knell :

But the seacaves rung, and the wild winds sung, The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

Hush'd is the harp-the minstrel gone.
And did he wander forth alone?
Alone, in indigence and age,
To linger out his pilgrimage?

No: close beneath proud Newark's tower,
Arose the minstrel's lowly bower-
A simple hut; but there was seen
The little garden hedged with green,
The cheerful hearth, and lattice clean.
There shelter'd wanderers, by the blaze,
Oft heard the tale of other days;
For much he loved to ope his door,
And give the aid he begg'd before.
So pass'd the winter's day; but still,
When summer smiled on sweet Bowhill,
And July's eve, with balmy breath,
Waved the bluebells on Newark heath;
When throstles sung in Harehead-shaw,
And corn was green on Carterhaugh,
And flourish'd broad Blackandro's oak,
The aged harper's soul awoke!
Then would he sing achievements high,
And circumstance of chivalry,
Till the rapt traveller would stay,
Forgetful of the closing day;

And noble youths, the strain to hear,
Forsook the hunting of the deer;
And Yarrow, as he roll'd along,
Bore burden to the minstrel's song.

FROM "MARMION."

NEXT morn the baron climb'd the tower,
To view afar the Scottish power,

Encamp'd on Flodden edge :
The white pavilions made a show,
Like remnants of the winter snow,
Along the dusky ridge.