Dark

green was the spot, mid the brown mountain heather, Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay ; Like the corpse of an outcast, abandoned to weather,

Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless ciay;
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,
The much-loved remains of his master defended,

And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? When the wind moved his garments, how oft didst thou

start? How many long days and long nights didst thou number,

Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart ? But ah! was it meet, that no requiem read o'er him, No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him, And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him,

Unhonoured the pilgrim from life should depart ?

When a prince to the fate of a peasant has yielded,

The tapestry waves dark through the dim-lighted hall; With 'scutcheons of silver, the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall; ; Through the courts at deep midnight the torches are

gleaming, In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming,

Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,

Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, When 'wildered he drops from some cliff huge in stature,

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam; And more stately thy couch, by this distant lake lying, Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying, With but one faithful friend to witness thee dying, In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedecam.

Sir W. Scott.

THE MOTHER.

Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps ;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy~

Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy!
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine ;
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine;

6

Bright as his manly sire, the son shall be
In form and soul ; but, ah ! more blessed than he !
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last,
Shall soothe his aching heart for all the past
With
many
a smile

my

solitude терау, , And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.

And
say,

when summoned from the world and thee,
I lay my head beneath the willow tree,
Wilt thou, sweet mourner l at my stone appear,
And soothe my parted spirit lingering near?
Oh, wilt thou come, at evening hour to shed
The tears of memory o'er my narrow bed;
With aching temples on thy hand reclined,
Muse on the last farewell I leave behind ;
Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low,
And think on all my love, and all my woe?'

So speaks affection, ere the infant eye
Can look regard, or brighten in reply :
But when the cherub lip hath learnt to claim
A mother's ear by that endearing name;
Soon as the playful innocent can prove
A tear of pity, or a smile of love,
Or cons his murmuring task beneath her care,
Or lisps with holy look his evening prayer,

Or gazing, mutely pensive, sits to hear
The mournful ballad warbled in his ear;
How fondly looks admiring Hope the while,
At
every
artless tear and

every

smile! How glows the joyous parent to descry A guileless bosom, true to sympathy!

Campbell

THE DAY OF REST.

How still the morning of the ballowed day!
Mute is the voice of rural labour, hushed
The ploughboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with faded flowers
That yester-morn bloomed waving in the breeze;
Sounds the most faint attract the ear ;--the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating, midway up the hill,
Calmness sits throned on yon unmoving cloud,
To him, who wanders o'er the upland leas,
The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale,

A

And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song ; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen ;
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard, at intervals,
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.

With dove-like wings, Peace o'er yon village broods : The dizzying mill-wheel rests ; the anvil's din Hath ceased ; all, all around is quietness. Less fearful on this day, the limping bare Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man, Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free, Unbeedful of the pasture, roams at large; And, as his stiff unwieldly bulk he rolls, His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray.

But, chiefly man the day of rest enjoys: Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor

man's day; On other days the man of toil is doomed To eat his joyless bread, lonely; the ground Both seat and board ; screened from the winter's cold, And summer's heat, by neighbouring hedge or tree; But on this day, embosomed in his home, He shares the frugal meal with those he loves ; With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy