THE LAZY MIST.

THE lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,
Concealing the course of the dark winding rill ;
How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear,
As autumn to winter resigns the pale year.

The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,
And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,
How quick time is flying, how keen fate pursues;
How long I have liv'd-but how much liv'd in

vain ;

How little of life's scanty span may remain : What aspects, old time, in his progress has worn; What ties, cruel fate, in my bosom has torn.

How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd! And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how pain'd!

This life's not worth having with all it can give, For something beyond it poor man sure must live.

O, WERE

O, WERE I ON PARNASSUS' HILL,

Tune,

"MY LOVE IS LOST TO ME."

O WERE I on Parnassus' hill!
Or had of Helicon my fill;
That I might catch poetic skill,

To sing how dear I love thee.
But Nith maun be my muse's well,
My muse maun be thy bonnie sel:
On Corsincon I'll glowr and spell,

And write how dear I love thee.

Then come sweet muse, inspire my lay,
For a' the lee-lang simmer's day,

I coudna sing, I coudna say,

How much, how dear I love thee.

I see thee dancing o'er the green,
Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean,
Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een-
By heaven and earth I love thee!

By night, by day, a-field, at hame,
The thoughts o' thee my breast inflame;
I muse and sing thy name,

And ay

I only live to love thee.

Tho' I were doom'd to wander on,
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun,
Till my last, weary sand was run;
Till then-and then I love thee.

I LOVE

I LOVE MY JEAN.

Tune,

"MISS ADMIRAL GORDON'S STRATHSPEY."

Or a' the airts the wind can blaw,

I dearly like the west,

For there the bonnie lassie lives,

The lassie I lo'e best:

There wild woods grow, and rivers row,

And mony a hill between ;

But day and night my fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,

I see her sweet and fair:

I hear her in the tunefu' birds,

I hear her charm the air:

There's not a bonnie flower that springs

By fountain, shaw, or green, There's not a bonnie bird that sings,

But minds me o' my Jean.

THE

THE BRAES O' BALLOCHMYLE.

THE Catrine woods were yellow seen,
The flowers decay'd on Catrine lee,*
Nae lavrock sang on hillock green,
But nature sicken'd on the e'e.
Thro' faded

groves Maria sang,

Hersel in beauty's bloom the whyle,
And ay the wild-wood echoes rang,
Fareweel the Braes o' Ballochmyle.

Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers,
Again ye'll flourish fresh and fair;
Ye birdies dumb, in with'ring bowers,
Again ye'll charm the vocal air.

But

* Catrine, in Ayrshire, the seat of Dugald Stewart, Esq. Professor of Moral Philosophy in the university of Edinburgh. Ballochmyle, formerly the seat of Sir John Whitefoord, now of Alexander, esq.

E.