A

Arran.

ON THE FRITH OF CLYDE.

RRAN! a single-crested Teneriffe,

A St. Helena next, in shape and hue Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue; Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff Built for the air, or wingéd Hippogriff, That he might fly, where no one could pursue, From this dull monster and her sooty crew; And, as a god, light on thy topmost cliff? Impotent wish! which reason would despise If the mind knew no union of extremes, No natural bond between the boldest schemes Ambition frames and heart-humilities. Beneath stern mountains many a soft vale lies, And lofty springs give birth to lowly streams. William Wordsworth.

THE GOLDEN ISLAND: ARRAN FROM AYR.

EEP set in distant seas it lies;

The noonday clouds above it rise,

fall,

Then drop as white as virgin's pall.

And sometimes, when that shroud uplifts,

The far green fields show strange and fair;

Mute waterfalls in silver rifts

Sparkle adown the hillside bare.

But ah! mists gather more and more;
And though the blue sky has no tears,
And the sea laughs with light all o'er,
The lovely island disappears.

O vanished island of the blest!

O dream of all things pure and high! Hid in deep seas, as faithful breast

Hides loves that have but seemed to die,

Whether on seas dividing tossed,

Or led through fertile lands the while,
Better lose all things than have lost
The memory of the morning isle!

For lo! when gloaming shadows glide,
And all is calm in earth and air,
Above the heaving of the tide
The lonely island rises fair;

Its purple peaks shine, outlined grand
And clear, as noble lives nigh done;
While stretches bright from land to land
The broad sea-pathway to the sun.

He wraps it in his glory's blaze,
He stoops to kiss its forehead cold;
And, all transfigured by his rays,

It gleams an isle of molten gold.
The sun may set, the shades descend,
Earth sleep, and yet while sleeping smile;
But it will live unto life's end,
That vision of the Golden Isle.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik,

CATHAIR FHARGUS.

FERGUS'S SEAT.

A MOUNTAIN in the Island of Arran, the summit of which resembles a gigantic human profile.

WIT

WITH face turned upward to the changeful sky, I, Fergus, lie, supine in frozen rest; The maiden morning clouds slip rosily

Unclasped, unclasping, down my granite breast; The lightning strikes my brow and passes by.

There's nothing new beneath the sun, I wot;
I "Fergus" called, the great preadamite,
Who for my mortal body blindly sought
Rash immortality, and on this height
Stone-bound, forever am and yet am not,

There's nothing new beneath the sun, I say.
Ye pygmies of a later race, who come
And play out your brief generation's play

Below me, know, I too spent my life's sum,
And revelled through my short tumultuous day.

O, what is man that he should mouth so grand Through his poor thousand as his seventy years? Whether as king I ruled a trembling land,

Or swayed by tongue or pen my meaner peers, Or earth's whole learning once did understand,

What matter? The star-angels know it all.

They who came sweeping through the silent night And stood before me, yet did not appall:

Till, fighting 'gainst me in their courses bright, Celestial smote terrestrial. Hence, my fall.

Hence, Heaven cursed me with a granted prayer;
Made my hill-seat eternal; bade me keep
My pageant of majestic lone despair,

While one by one into the infinite deep

Sank kindred, realm, throne, world: yet I lay there.

There still I lie. Where are my glories fled?
My wisdom that I boasted as divine?
My grand primeval women fair, who shed

Their whole life's joy to crown one hour of mine, And lived to curse the love they coveted?

Gone,

gone. Uncounted æons have rolled by, And still my ghost sits by its corpse of stone, And still the blue smile of the new-formed sky Finds me unchanged. Slow centuries crawling on Bring myriads happy death: - I cannot die.

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Dinah Maria Mulock Craik.

FAR

Arranteenie.

THE LASS O' ARRANTEENIE.

WAR lone amang the Highland hills,
Midst Nature's wildest grandeur,
By rocky dens and woody glens
With weary steps I wander.
The langsome way, the darksome day,
The mountain mist sae rainy,
Are naught to me when gaun to thee,
Sweet lass o' Arranteenie.

Yon mossy rosebud down the howe,
Just opening fresh and bonny,
Blinks sweetly 'neath the hazel bough,
And 's scarcely seen by ony;
Sae sweet amidst her native hills

Obscurely blooms my Jeanie,
Mair fair and gay than rosy May,
The flower o' Arranteenie.

Now from the mountain's lofty brow
I view the distant ocean,

There Avarice guides the bounding prow,
Ambition courts promotion:

:

Let Fortune pour her golden store,

Her laurelled favors many;

Give me but this, my soul's first wish,

The lass o' Arranteenie.

Robert Tannahill.