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Comforter had been with her, and there was such an expression of blessedness on her countenance, as the moonlight shewed it pale, wan, sunken but rejoicing, that the wretched intruder was fixed in amazement, and calmed by the unexpected and inexplicable change of every feature." Look here, my beloved husband, look here-look here!"-and he beheld Alec and Alice fast asleep, and locked in each other's arms. Yes, father, I love you,-forgive you ;will you let me kiss you, father?" murmured the boy, buried in a profound dream; and the sweet broken voice brought the sinner on his knees, as if God's own hand had smitten him with sudden death.

tence.

Hours past away; and the grey light of dawn saw husband and wife yet kneeling as in morning prayer. Mercy and forgiveness are the attributes of the Eternal, and, like an effluence from his spirit, may be breathed from one human heart to another, destroying both grief and guilt. Remorse had long preyed upon its victim, but now he was delivered up to peniEvil found now no abiding-place in his spirit; and after many sudden visits,-many ghostlike hauntings and midnight knockings at its gate, forsook it for ever,-leaving but a salutary and monitory dread of its return. In a few months the summer flowers were again bright in the garden, and clustering round the porch; and before the summer was gone, as the family, in decent apparel, walked duly every Sabbath to church, the neighbours had almost entirely forgotten how grievously one had erred, and all had been afflicted. But it was on the Sabbath-day that the penitential man most remembered all his sins ; and, in its blessed freedom from worldly cares, he

then communed with his own heart, and knew that it had been desperately wicked. His son's face was a perpetual memento of his guilt, but one that he loved to look on; and the beauty of returning health on that other face which, in its most deadly wanness, never had upbraided him, reminded him, almost every time it smiled, of the long-continued cruelty that had nearly brought it to the dust. But contrition settled down within his heart; for he felt as if he had finally made his peace with God, and that the past ought to be remembered only for sake of the future.

HACO'S GRAVE.

[The gentlemen who conducted the late Trigonometrical Survey of Scotland, paid considerable attention to the antiquities and local traditions of the northern part of the kingdom, and sometimes even endeavoured to ascertain how far those airy rumours correspond with existing facts. Among the other objects of their curiosity, was the grave of HALCO, or HACO, the Danish invader, which is pointed out on the shore of the narrow and rapid frith which, at the ferry of Kylerhea, in the district of Glenelg, divides the isle of Skye from the mainland.

According to the current tradition, the wolf-hound of the Danish chief was buried at the feet of his master. The officer who undertook to dig up the grave, had just succeeded in unearthing the bones of the hound, when a lowering dark day suddenly rose into so wild a storm of thunder and lightning, that he, with his assistants, was glad to abandon what every true highlander must have considered a most sacrilegious attempt. To the above circumstance these lines owe their origin.]

BACK, stranger!-back !-nor dare profane
The sepulchre of the noble Dane ;-
'Tis HACO's grave!-Should the brave molest
The place of a parted warrior's rest?—
Haughty, and bold, and headlong he,
As the rushing tides of his Baltic sea;
Who on Albyn poured his fierce Norse band,
And found but a grave on her wildest strand.

No Druid stone, nor Christian cross,

Marks HACO's grave, and Denmark's loss;

But the blackening heavens, and the fire-winged cloud,

Guard the mouldering bones in their earthly shroud; And in wild eclipse engulf the glade,

Should an unblest touch this spot invade.

Lone, brown, and waste, a seven-feet mound,

At Haco's feet sleeps his faithful hound ;

Yet the heart's own hallowed rites have blest
The place of the warrior's lonely rest.

The island fisher the Norse flag sees Again sweep round the Orcades ;—

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And, gentle voyager, who art thou,

With the calm sad eye, and the high pale brow?”—

Young Eddallil!-to her gods she wept

All night where her princely lover slept;

But the sun o'er green-coned wild Kintail,
Crimsoned her shallop's parting sail.

Stranger! thou'rt brave !—yet the brave may quell
To the force of the maiden's Runic spell;
Which blackens the heaven and chafes the wave,
Should an unblest foot dint Haco's grave.

Stranger! thou'rt proud, and scorn'st such fears ;—
O yield to the perished maiden's tears!
And part in peace,-nor dare profane
The sepulchre of her noble Dane.

THE HOME-STAR.

FAR o'er broad ocean's tide,
Wild, dark, and dreary,
The wanderer's bark may ride,
Storm-tost and weary;

Winds and mad waves may war,
Black skies bend o'er him,
Thro' storm and gloom one Star
Beams still before him.

His Father-land's heathy hill,

Lake, glen, or wildwood, Broad stream, or mountain rill,

The home of his childhood,

Over his soul will come

Soothingly telling,

That fond hearts there still are some

There, for him swelling.

That Star shines to him,

Far tho' he wander;
Clouds rushing dark and grim

Melt from its splendour:
Its smile, waking musings deep,
Spell-like has bound him,

Till wild wave, and tempest's sweep,
Brighten around him.

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