To warn the living maidens fair,
The loved of Heaven, the spirits' care,
That all whose minds unmeled remain
Shall bloom in beauty when time is gane.

With distant music, soft and deep,
They lulled Kilmeny sound asleep;
And when she awakened, she lay her lane,
Allhapped with flowers in the green-wood

wene.

When seven long years were come and fled;

When grief was calm, and hope was dead; When Searce was remembered Kilmeny's

name,

Late, late in a gloamin' Kilmeny came

hame!

And O, her beauty was fair to see,
But still and steadfast was her e'e!
Such beauty bard may never declare,
For there was no pride nor passion there;
And the soft desire of maiden's een
In that mild face could never be seen.
Her seymar was the lily flower,
And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower,
And her voice like the distant melodye,
That floats along the twilight sea.
But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
And keeped afar frae the haunts of

men;

123

The hawk and the hern attour them hung, And the merl and the mavis forhooyed their young,

And all in a peaceful ring were hurled ;It was like an eve in a sinless world!

For Something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard
came with the throstle-cock;
The corby left her houf in the rock;
The blackbird alang wi' the eagle flew ;
The hind came tripping o'er the dew;
The wolf and the kid their raike began,
And the tod, and the lamb, and the

leveret ran;

When a month and a day had come and gane,

Kilmeny sought the green-wood wene; There laid her down on the leaves sae green,

And Kilmeny on earth was never mair

But

that fell from her

Her holy hymns unheard to sing,
To suck the flowers, and drink the spring.
But wherever her peaceful form appeared,
The wild beasts of the hill were cheered: |
The wolf played blithely round the field,
The lordly bison lowed and kneeled;
The

And cowered aneath her lily hand.
And when at even the woodlands rung,
When hymns of other worlds she sung
In ecstasy of sweet devotion,
0, then the glen was all in motion!
The wild beasts of the forest came,
Broke from their bughts and faulds the

tame,

And goved around, charmed and amazed; Even the dull cattle crooned and gazed, And murmured, and looked with anxious

pain

seen.

O, the words

mouth

Were words of wonder, and words of

truth!