Lord Barnard is to greenwood gone,
Where fair Gil Morrice sits alone,

And careless combs his yellow hair;
Ah! mourn the youth, untimely slain !
The meanest of Lord Barnard's train

The hunter's mangled head must bear.

Or, change these notes of deep despair,
For love's more soothing tender air;

Sing, how, beneath the greenwood tree,
Brown Adam's love maintain'd her truth,
Nor would resign the exiled youth
For any knight the fair could see.

And sing the Hawk of pinion grey,†
To southern climes who wing'd his way,
For he could speak as well as fly;
Her brethren how the fair beguiled,
And on her Scottish lover smiled,

As slow she raised her languid eye.

Fair was her cheek's carnation glow,
Like red blood on a wreath of snow;

Like evening's dewy star her eye;
White as the sea-mew's downy breast,
Borne on the surge's foamy crest,

Her graceful bosom heaved the sigh.

In youth's first morn, alert and gay,
Ere rolling years had pass'd away,
Remember'd like a morning dream,
I heard these dulcet measures float,
In many a liquid winding note,

Along the banks of Tiviot's stream.

Sweet sounds! that oft have soothed to rest The sorrows of my guileless breast,

And charm'd away mine infant tears: Fond memory shall your strains repeat, Like distant echoes, doubly sweet,

That in the wild the traveller hears.

And thus, the exiled Scotian maid,
By fond alluring love betray'd

To visit Syria's date-crown'd shore,
In plaintive strains, that soothed despair,
Did "Bothwell's banks that bloom so fair,"
And scenes of early youth, deplore.

Soft syren, whose enchanting strain
Floats wildly round my raptured brain.
I bid your pleasing haunts adieu !
Yet, fabling fancy oft shall lead
My footsteps to the silver Tweed,

Through scenes that I no more must view.

NOTES

ON

SCOTTISH MUSIC, AN ODE.

Far in the green isle of the west.-P. 103. v. 2. The Flathinnis, or Celtic paradise.

Ah! sure, as Hindú legends tell.-P. 104. v. 1. The effect of music is explained by the Hindús, as recalling to our memory the airs of paradise, heard in a state of istence. Vide Sacontala.

pre-ex

Did" Bothwell's banks that bloom so fair.”—P. 106. v. 3. "So fell it out of late years, that an English gentleman, travelling in Palestine, not far from Jerusalem, as he passed through a country town, he heard, by chance, a woman sitting at her door, dandling her child, to sing, Bothwell bank, thou bloomest fair. The gentleman hereat wondered, and forthwith, in English, saluted the woman, who joyfully answered him ; and said, she was right glad there to see a gentleman of our isle: and told him, that she was a Scottish woman, and came first from Scotland to Venice, and from Venice thither, where her fortune was to be the wife of an officer under the Turk; who, being at that instant absent, and very soon to return, she

entreated the gentleman to stay there until his return. The which he did; and she, for country sake, to shew herself the more kind and bountiful unto him, told her husband, at his home-coming, that the gentleman was her kinsman; whereupon her husband entertained him very kindly; and, at his departure, gave him divers things of good value."-VERStigan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence. Chap. Of the Sirnames of our Antient Families. Antwerp, 1605.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

TALE OF TAMLANE.

ON THE

FAIRIES OF POPULAR SUPERSTITION.

Of airy elves, by moonlight shadows seen,

The silver token, and the circled green."-POPE.

In a work, avowedly dedicated to the preservation of the poetry and traditions of the "olden time," it would be unpardonable to omit this opportunity of making some observations upon so interesting an article of the popular creed, as that concerning the Elves, or Fairies. The general idea of spirits, of a limited power, and subordinate nature, dwelling among the woods and mountains, is, perhaps, common to all nations. But the intermixture of tribes, of languages, and religion, which has occurred in Europe, renders it difficult to trace the origin of the names which have been bestowed upon