How often the beauty is hid Amid shades that her triumphs deny ! How often the hero forbid From the path that conducts to the sky! A Helen has pined in the grove, A Homer has wanted his name, Unseen in the circle of love, Unknown to the temple of fame. Yet let us walk forth to the stream, THE BRAES OF YARROW. REV. JOHN LOGAN. THY braes were bonnie, Yarrow stream, Thou art to me a stream of sorrow; Behold my love, the flower of Yarrow ! He promised me a milk-white steed, He promised me a little page, To squire me to his father's towers; Now he is wedded to his grave, Alas, his watery grave in Yarrow! Sweet were his words when last we met; And gave a doleful groan through Yarrow. His mother from the window look'd, The greenwood path to meet her brother: They only saw the cloud of night, They only heard the roar of Yarrow. No longer from thy window look ; Thou hast no son, thou tender mother! No longer search the forest thorough; The tear shall never leave my cheek, I'll seek thy body in the stream, And then with thee I'll sleep in Yarrow. The tear did never leave her cheek, No other youth became her marrow; She found his body in the stream, And now with him she sleeps in Yarrow. This beautiful song was founded upon the well-known story made immortal in the ballads of Scotland, both old and new. There are several versions - the story being the same in each, but in none of them told so exquisitely as by Mr. William Hamilton of Bangour, in his ballad commencing, "Busk ye, busk ye, my bonnie, bonnie bride!" and rendered still more famous than it formerly was by the fine poem of Wordsworth, "Yarrow Unvisited." THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST. FIRST VERSION. JANE ELLIOT, about the year 1750. I've heard the lilting at our yowe-milking, At bughts in the morning nae blythe lads are scorning, In hairst at the shearing nae youths now are jeering, At e'en at the gloaming nae swankies are roaming Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the border ! The Flowers of the Forest that focht aye the foremost, We hear nae mair lilting at our yowe-milking, The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away. The "Flowers of the Forest" are the young men of the districts of Selkirkshire and Peebleshire, anciently known as "The Forest." The song is founded by the authoress upon an older composition of the same name, deploring the loss of the Scotch at Flodden Field, and of which all has been lost except two or three lines. THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST. SECOND VERSION. MRS. COCKBURN, born about the year 1710, died 1794. I'VE seen the smiling Of fortune beguiling ; I've felt all its favours, and found its decay : Kind its caressing; But now 'tis fled-fled far away. I've seen the forest Adorn'd the foremost With flowers of the fairest, most pleasant and gay; Their scent the air perfuming; But now they are wither'd and weeded away. I've seen the morning With gold the hills adorning, And loud tempest storming before the mid-day; Shining in the sunny beams Grow drumly and dark as he row'd on his way. O fickle Fortune, Why this cruel sporting; Oh, why still perplex us, poor sons of a day? Nae mair your frowns can fear me; For the Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away. This song is an imitation, but not a good one, of Miss Elliot's, and appeared originally in Herd's Collection in 1776. THE moon had climb'd the highest hill Her silver light on tower and tree, Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea; When soft and low a voice was heard, Saying, "Mary, weep no more for me!" She from her pillow gently raised Her head, to ask who there might be, And saw young Sandy shivering stand, With visage pale and hollow ee; "O Mary dear, cold is my clay, It lies beneath a stormy sea; Far, far from thee I sleep in death; |