Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek

The spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,
Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth er Greek,
With nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r!

The other day ?-the Swan?"

His heart began in his throat to rise.

66

Ay, ay, sir; here in the cupboard lies

The jacket he had on."

"And so your lad is gone!—

"Gone with the Swan." "And did she stand

With her anchor clutching hold of the sand,

66

For a month, and never stir ?"

'Why, to be sure! I've seen from the land,

Like a lover kissing his lady's hand,

The kerchief from your neck;
Ay, and he'll bring it back.

"And did the little lawless lad,

That has made you sick, and made you sad,
Sail with the Gray Swan's crew "
“Lawless! the man is going mad;
The best boy mother ever had;

Be sure, he sailed with the crew-
What would you have him do ?"

"And he has never written line,
Nor sent you word, nor made you sign,
To say he was alive ?"

66

Hold-if 'twas wrong, the wrong is mine;
Besides, he may be in the brine;

And could he write from the grave?
Tut, man! what would you have?"

"Gone twenty years! a long, long cruise ;
'Twas wicked thus your love to abuse;
But if the lad still live,

And come back home, think you you can
Forgive him ?" 'Miserable man!

66

You're mad as the sea; you rave-
What have I to forgive ?"

The sailor twitched his shirt so blue,
And from within his bosom drew
The kerchief. She was wild:

"My

d!-my Father!-is it true?
My little lad-my Elihu ?
And is it ?-is it ?-is it you?

My blessed boy-my child

My dead-my living child!"

TO MARY IN HEAVEN.

ROBERT BURNS.

[Born in 1759, and dying in 1796, "more," says Mr. Allan Cunningham, "of a broken heart than any other illness," Robert Burns's birth stands on the threshold of the Centenary of British Bards whose writings are most familiar to the present generation. The most convincing proof that the gift of poesy is not the result of "learning overmuch," is found in the fact that Burns was born a peasant, and that his education was only in accordance with his station. He threshed in the barn, reaped, mowed, and held the plough before he wa fifteen. Burns's fugitive pieces naturally passed from hand to hand, and attracted the attention of a few discerning individuals: by their aid he was enabled, in 1786, to publish his first volume. The result was, his name and fame flashed like sunshine over the land: the shepherd on the hill, the maiden at her wheel. learnt his songs by heart, and the first scholars of Scotland

courted his acquaintance. He was taken to Edinburgh, fêted, petted-and spoiled. Lords and ladies who had invited him to their houses soon neglected him, or, when they met him, passed over to the other side of the street. What wonder, then, that in the bitterness of disappointed hope, he should speak too freely about freedom, and be voted as one who was to be kept down! When he failed in that farm for which, by their toadyism, they unfitted him, they made him an exciseman, and told him if he would only lick-spittle their order, he might hope to rise to the rank of a supervisor. He couldn't do it; the natural dignity of his genius prevented him. Burns did not "boo and boo" himself into favour, as he might have done; his true genius soared above even this nationality, and he was given to understand that his hopes of preferment were blasted-nay, his continuance in office was made dependent on his silence. He did not survive this degradation long; he never held up his head again. He died in the summer of 1796; and then-the lion dead, uprose the chorus of repentant asses! All Scotland claimed him for her own.]

THOU lingering star with lessening ray
That lov'st to greet the early morn!
Again thou usherest in the day,

My Mary from my soul was torn !

O Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

That sacred hour can I forget ?—
Can I forget the hallowed grove,
Where by the winding Ayr, we met
To live one day of parting love?
ETERNITY will not efface

Those records dear of transports past!
Thy image at our last embrace-

Ah! little thought we, 'twas our last!

Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore,
O'er-hung with wild woods, thickening green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twined amorous round the raptured scene.
The flowers sprang wanton to be pressed;
The birds sang love on every spray;

Till, too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaimed the speed of wingèd day.

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time but the impression deeper makes,-
As streams their channels deeper wear.

My Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy blissful place of rest?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his 1reast?

P

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

JOHN KEATS.

[See page 167.]

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk :
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness-
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth!
O for a beaker full.of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret,

groan;

Here, where men sit and hear each other Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards :

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain-
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream ?
Fled is that music :-do I wake or sleep?

THE COMET.

JAMES HOGG.

[James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was born on the anniversary of the natal day of Robert Burns, a coincidence he was proud of referring to, January 25, 1782; fortunately for the young poet, some of his fugitive pieces, written at the age of eighteen, were submitted to Sir Walter Scott, who encouraged him to proceed. A volume of ballads, "The Forest Minstrel," was sub