On the Massacre of Glencoe.

H! tell me, harper, wherefore flow
Thy wayward notes of wail and woe
Far down the desert of Glencoe,

Where none may list their melody!
Say, harpest thou to the mists that fly,
Or to the dun deer glancing by,

Or to the eagle that from high

Screams chorus to thy minstrelsy ?"

"No, not to these, for they have rest;
The mist-wreath hath the mountain-crest,
The stag his lair, the erne her nest,
Abode of lone security.

But those for whom I pour the lay,
Not wild-wood deep, nor mountains grey,
Not this deep dell that shrouds from day

Could screen from treacherous cruelty.

"Their flags were furled, and mute their drum,
The very household dogs were dumb,
Unwont to bay at guests that come

In guise of hospitality.

His blithest notes the piper plied,
Her gayest snood the maiden tied,
The dame her distaff flung aside,

To tend her kindly housewifery.

"The hand that mingled in the meal
At midnight drew the felon-steel,
And gave the host's kind breast to feel
Meed for his hospitality!

A RED, RED ROSE.

The friendly heart which warmed that hand,
At midnight armed it with the brand,
And bade destruction's flames expand
Their red and fearful blazonry.

"Then woman's shriek was heard in vain,
Nor infancy's unpitied plain,

More than the warrior's groan, could gain
Respite from ruthless butchery.

The winter wind that whistles shrill,

The snows that night that choked the hill,
Though wild and pitiless, had still

Far more than Southron clemency.

"Long have my harp's best notes been gone,
Few are its strings, and faint their tone,
They can but sound in desert lone

Their grey-haired master's misery.
Were each grey hair a minstrel-string,
Each chord should imprecations fling,
Till startled Scotland loud should ring,
'Revenge for blood and treachery!'

WALTER SCOTT.

A Red, Red Rose.

MY luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June
O, my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;

179

180

THE VOICE OF DEPARTED FRIENDSHIP.

And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,

Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

BURNS.

The Voice of Departed Friendship.

HAD a friend who died in early youth!
And often in those melancholy dreams,
When my soul travels through the umbrage deep
That shades the silent world of memory,

Methinks I hear his voice! sweet as the breath
Of balmy ground-flowers, stealing from some spot

Of sunshine sacred, in a gloomy wood,

To everlasting spring.

In the church-yard

Where now he sleeps-the day before he died,

[ROBERT BURNS, the national poet of Scotland, was the son of a poor peasant farmer in Ayrshire but humble as was his birth, his education was of a far better order than usually falls to the lot of men in his position in England. His career was unfortunate, and unhappily his misfortunes were partly self-inflicted; but the charge of intemperance laid at his door by many writers seems to have been greatly exaggerated. Of his poems it is needless to speak. Their pathos, vigour, and humour have been universally acknowledged, and thousands of delighted readers have borne testimony to the genius of the Ayrshire ploughman, peasant farmer, and exciseman. Even when subjected to the diluting process of translation, the spirit of his poems is not lost; and in the German, in particular, Burns's poems have been largely circulated and eagerly studied.]

THE VOICE OF DEPARTED FRIENDSHIP.

181

Silent we sat together on a grave;

Till gently laying his pale hand on mine,

Pale in the moonlight that was coldly sleeping
On heaving sod and marble monument—

This was the music of his last farewell!

"Weep not, my brother! though thou seest me led. By short and easy stages, day by day,

With motion almost imperceptible

Into the quiet grave. God's will be done!
Even when a boy, in doleful solitude

My soul oft sate within the shadow of death!
And when I looked along the laughing earth,
Up the blue heavens, and through the middle air
Joyfully ringing with the sky-lark's song,

I wept! and thought how sad for one so young
To bid farewell to so much happiness.

But Christ hath called me from this lower world,
Delightful though it be-and when I gaze
On the green earth and all its happy hills,
'Tis with such feelings as a man beholds
A little farm which he is doomed to leave
On an appointed day. Still more and more
He loves it as that mournful day draws near,
But has prepared his heart—and is resigned.”
-Then lifting up his radiant eyes to heaven,
He said, with fervent voice-" O, what were life,
Even in the warm and summer-light of joy,
Without those hopes, that, like refreshing gales
At evening from the sea, come o'er the soul
Breathed from the ocean of eternity.

-And oh! without them who could bear the storms
That fall in roaring blackness o'er the waters

Of agitated life! Then hopes arise