SMILE O'ER THEM ALL.

We breath'd (when childhood's moody wiles
Were dimpling round our cheeks in smiles)
Hath lost that summer sunny glow,
That balm'd the valley's breast below,
And tinged each flower with richer dies,
That opened to the clear blue skies.

Yet fond remembrance paints anew
The scenes whence infancy first drew
These rude impressions, and matured
Their semblance into life, and pour'd
The living pictures as they rose,
Swelling with animation's throes,

On the heart's beating chords;-where placed,
They grew, and ne'er could be effaced.

209

SMILE O'ER THEM ALL.

IF to grieve be a folly, then smile if you can;
To indulge melancholy, unsettles the man;

Though the ills of the world like mists hover round thee,
When sorrows are fresh, or ingratitudes wound thee,

Smile o'er them all.

Smile if thou can, though thy eye's glaz'd and hollow,
Warm sunshine the raging tornado may follow;
Smile though thy blooming bride enters the tomb,
On the day thou would'st hail her the wife of thy home:
Smile o'er them all!

Smile though the world wide,-all should deride thee; Thy bosom's thy own, then rebel should it chide thee; Smile, though despair strew the path-way before thee, Where ruin unfurls his pale banner o'er thee:

Smile o'er them all!

Thy smile may recall lingering hope in her flight,
When thy griefs court repose, ere she settles in night;
Kneel down at her shrine, if thy smiles she return, [spurn,
No more mourns the lorn heart, even thee should she
Smile o'er them all!

Thus the Muse bade me sing, saying hope is asleep,
But soon will she waken, no more must thou weep;
I see a fair sunny scene brightening around,-
Sorrow's clouds are dispelling, hope's all-cheering sound
Whispers, smile o'er them all!

ARABELLA.

Extinctam, omnes crudeli funere, Arabellam,
Flebant.

SAD the mourners pace before,

Memento Mori's, fraught with woe;
Young Arabella blooms no more,
The pride of Gayfield-row.

Yon minute mourning-bell tolls loud;

Its warning, thrilling knell, I know,
Strikes terror through the gazing crowd,

Who mark death's pageant passing slow.

ARABELLA.

Her weeping mother sees the bier,

Borne slowly through the inquiring throng; These wailings and that heart-wrung tear, Will rankle in her bosom long.

Her gray-hair'd father bears the pall,
He sees not ought of all the crowd;
For hopes-fair prospects—each and all,
Rest with his daughter in her shroud.

Her youthful lover swells the train;—
What father, mother, all may feel,
Are keenly felt by him,-the pain
Of blighted love, who dares conceal!

The

grave receives this opening flower,
By all who knew her, lov'd, caress'd;
Cropp'd down by thine unerring power,
Consumption, scourge to the human breast.

The pall's remov'd, the gilded plate
On the dark coffin tells thy name,

Dead Arabella! age, and date,

Now greets the tell-tale eye of fame.

We thought thee older than thou seem'd, When Heaven reclaim'd thee as its own: "Etatis Seventeen!"-we deem'd

Thy teens were o'er, thy girlhood gone.

211

Thy maiden mind was premature,—
Thy beauty, name it not 'tis gone,—
Thy worth, thy modesty so pure,
We saw, and felt them, not alone.

The sexton as he clamp'd the sod,

On thy bone-mingled bed of earth,
Dream'd not of Pluto's drear abode,
Nor parents' wail, nor beauty's worth,

But carelessly some ditty sang,

As with his spade he smooth'd the dust; Perhaps, love never lent his pang To this rude misanthropist.

At pleasure now the tempest roars,
And swirls around the cheerless lair;
While the rain-god in torrents pours,
His watery bosom bare.

Sun, wind, or rain, she heeds them not,— To heaven the maiden's soul has fled, While the mortal part, by man forgot, Lies mingling with its kindred dead.

Such is the tale, my brother worm!
Rung in thine ear, from hour to hour,

And keenly felt; still no reform,

Till death's mandates above thee lower.

SWEET! COME AWAY MY DARLING.

213

SWEET! COME AWAY MY DARLING.

SWEET! come away my darling,

And range Rowallan glens with me;
Where balmy through the wild wood,
Young zephyr's breath o'er flower and tree
Tells summer in her childhood

Lies blooming all before thee;
And strews around the spangled lea,

Full many a dainty garland.

Sweet! come away my darling,

Rowallan woods through summer's reign,

Ne'er smiled upon a blossom,

So peerless as the Lady Jane;—

Yon water-lily's bosom,

Like thine's, pure without a stain,

As her snowy-cups repose them,
On the lake's breast, my darling.

Young Fairlie and his darling,

They wander'd down the greenwood's dell,

Where fluttering round his fond heart,
Love panted all its fears to tell;
But hope may ward each willing art,
And every cloud dispel,

That intervening strives to part

Young Fairlie and his darling.

The above was suggested, after reading the following sentence in the history and descent of the house of Rowallan: "Tradition still points out the spot where Fairlie was married to the heiress