"Mid pennoned spears, a steely grove, Dark rolling, glanced the ranks along, And his steel truncheon, waved on high, Seemed marshalling the iron throng. "But yet his saddened brow confessed A passing shade of doubt and awe; Some fiend was whispering in his breast, 'Beware of injured Bothwellhaugh!' "The death-shot parts-the charger springsWild rises tumult's startling roar !— And Murray's plumy helmet ringsRings on the ground, to rise no more. "What joy the raptured youth can feel To hear her love the loved one tell, Or he who broaches on his steel The wolf by whom his infant fell! "But dearer to my injured eye, To see in dust proud Murray roll; With pride her bleeding victim saw; Loud bugles join their wild acclaim"Murray is fallen, and Scotland freed! Couch, Arran! couch thy spear of flame!" But, see the minstrel vision fails The glimmering spears are seen no more; The shouts of war die on the gales, Or sink in Evan's lonely roar. For the loud bugle, pealing high, The blackbird whistles down the vale, And sunk in ivied ruins lie The bannered towers of Evandale. For chiefs, intent on bloody deed, And Vengeance, shouting o'er the slain, Lo! high-born Beauty rules the steed, Or graceful guides the silken rein. And long may Peace and Pleasure own On the fair banks of Evandale ! THE GRAY BROTHER. A FRAGMENT. THE tradition, upon which the tale is founded, regards a house upon the barony of Gilmerton, near Lasswade, in Mid-Lothian. This building, now called Gilmerton Grange, was formerly named Burndale, from the following tragic adventure:-The barony of Gilmerton belonged, of yore, to a gentleman named Heron, who had one beautiful daughter. This young lady was seduced by the abbot of Newbottle, a richly-endowed abbey, upon the banks of the South Eske, now a seat of the marquis of Lothian, Heron came to the knowledge of this circumstance, and learned, also, that the lovers carried on their guilty intercourse by the contrivance of the lady's nurse, who lived at this house of Gilmerton Grange, or Burndale. He formed a resolution of bloody vengeance, undeterred by the supposed sanctity of the clerical character, or by the stronger claims of natural affection. Choosing, therefore, a dark and windy night, when the objects of his vengeance were engaged in a stolen interview, he set fire to a stack of dried thorns and other combustibles, which he had caused to be piled against the house, and reduced to a pile of glowing ashes the dwelling, with all its inmates. The scene with which the ballad opens was suggested by a curious passage in the life of Alexander Peden, one of the wandering and persecuted teachers of the sect of Cameronians, during the reign of Charles II. and that of his successor James II. THE Pope he was saying the high, high mass, All on Saint Peter's day, With the power to him given, by the saints in heaven, The Pope he was saying the blessed mass, And the people kneeled around, And from each man's soul his sins did pass, And all among the crowded throng While through vaulted roof, and aisles aloof, At the holiest word, he quivered for fear, And faltered in the sound And, when he would the chalice rear, He dropped it on the ground. "The breath of one, of evil deed, Pollutes our sacred day; He has no portion in our creed, "A being, whom no blessed word A wretch, at whose approach abhorred "Up, up, unhappy! haste, arise! I charge thee not to stop my voice, For forty days and nights so drear, Amid the penitential flock, Seemed none more bent to pray; Again unto his native land His unblessed feet his native seat, Through woods more fair no stream more sweet And lords to meet the Pilgrim came, And vassals bent the knee; For all 'mid Scotland's chiefs of fame, And boldly for his country, still, Aye, e'en when, on the banks of Till, Sweet are the paths, O, passing sweet! O'er airy steep, through copsewood deep, There the rapt poet's step may rove, And yield the muse the day; There Beauty, led by timid Love, May shun the tell-tale ray; From that fair dome, where suit is paid By blast of bugle free, To Auchendinny's hazel glade, And haunted Woodhouselee. Who knows not Melville's beechy grove, And Roslin's rocky glen, Dalkeith, which all the virtues love, And classic Hawthornden? Yet never a patu, from day to day, To Burndale's ruined Grange. A woeful place was that, I ween, As sorrow could desire; For nodding to the fall was each crumbling wall, And the roof was scathed with fire. It fell upon a summer's eve, While on Carnethy's head The last faint gleams of the sun's low beams Had streaked the gray with red; And the convent bell did vespers tell, And mingled with the solemn knell The heavy knell, the choir's faint swell, Until he came to that dreary place, Which did all in ruins lie. He gazed on the walls, so scathed with fire, And there was aware of a Gray Friar, Resting him on a stone. "Now, Christ thee save!" said the Gray Brother; "Some pilgrim thou seem'st to be;" But in sore amaze did Lord Albert gaze, Nor answer again made he. "O come ye from east, or come ye from west, Or bring relics from over the sea; Or come ye from the shrine of Saint James the divine, Or Saint John of Beverley?" "I come not from the shrine of Saint James the divine, Nor bring relics from over the sea; I bring but a curse from our father, the Pope, Which for ever will cling to me.' "Now, woeful pilgrim, say not so! But kneel thee down by me, And shrive thee so clean of thy deadly sin, "And who art thou, thou Gray Brother, That I should shrive to thee, When he, to whom are given the keys of earth and heaven, Has no power to pardon me?" The pilgrim kneeled him on the sand, THOMAS THE RHYMER. IN THREE PARTS. fEW personages are so renowned in tradition as Thomas of Ercildoune, known by the appellation of The Rhymer. Uniting, or supposed to unite, in his person, the powers of poetical composition and of vaticination, his memory, even after the lapse of five hundred years, is regarded with veneration by his countrymen. To give anything like a certain history of this remarkable man would be indeed difficult; but the curious may derive some satisfaction from the particulars here brought together. It is agreed on all hands that the residence, and probably the birthplace, of this ancient bard, was Ercildoune, a village situated upon the Leader, two miles above its junction with the Tweed. The ruins of an ancient tower are still pointed out as the Rhymer's castle. The uniform tradition bears that his surname was Lermont, or Learmont; and that the appellation of The Rhymer was conferred upon him in consequence of his poetical compositions. There remains, nevertheless, some doubt upon the subject. We are better able to ascertain the period at which Thomas of Ercildoune fived, being the latter end of the thirteenth century. I am inclined to place his death a little farther back than Mr Pinkerton, who supposes that he was alive in 1300 (List of Scottish Poets). It cannot be doubted that Thomas of Ercildoune was a remarkable and important person in his own time, since, very shortly after his death, we find him celebrated as a prophet and as a poet. Whether he himself made any pretensions to the first of these characters, or whether it was gratuitously conferred upon him by the credulity of posterity, it seems difficult to decide. If we may believe Mackenzie, Learmont only versified the prophecies delivered by Eliza, an inspired nun of a convent at Haddington. But of this there seems not to be the most distant proof. On the contrary, all ancient authors, who quote the Rhymer's prophecies, uniformly Suppose them to have been emitted by himself. The popular tale bears that Thomas was carried off, at an early age, to the Fairy Land, where he acquired all the knowledge which made him afterwards so famous. After seven years' residence, he was permitted to return to the earth, to enlighten and astonish his countrymen by his prophetic powers; still, however, remaining bound to return to his royal mistress, when she should intimate her pleasure. Accordingly, while Thomas was making merry with his friends in the tower of Ercildoune, a person came running in, and told, with marks of fear and astonishment, that a hart and hind had left the neighbouring forest, and were, composedly and slowly, parading the street of the village. The prophet instantly arose, left his habitation, and followed the wonderful animals to the forest, whence he was never seen to return. According to the popular belief, he still "drees his weird" in Fairy Land, and is one day expected to revisit earth. In the meanwhile, his memory is held in the most profound respect. The Eildon Tree, from beneath the shade of which he delivered his prophecies, now no longer exists; but the spot is marked by a large stone, called the Eildon Tree Stone. A neighbouring rivulet takes the name of the Bogle Burn (Goblin Brook) from the Rhymer's supernatural visitants. It seemed to the Editor unpardonable to dismiss a person so important in Border tradition as the Rhymer, without some farther notice than a simple commentary upon the following ballad. It is given from a copy, obtained from a lady residing not far from Ercildoune, corrected and enlarged by one in Mrs Brown's MSS. The former copy, however, as might be expected, is far more |