KILMENY.

[James Hogg, "The Ettrick Shepherd," born in Ettrick Forest, 25th January, 1772 (the date given in his autobiography); died at Altrive, on the Yarrow, 21st November, 1835. He was the son of a shepherd, and his early years were spent in farm-service. Some of his songs having attracted the attention of Scott and others, he was encouraged to study and to write. His first important publication was The Mountain Bard, and about the same time he issued An Essay on Sheep. The profits derived from the two works enabled him to rent a farm; but he did not thrive in it, and he resigned his lease. He now determined to support himself entirely by his pen, and he started a weekly journal called The Spy: but it did not succeed. Soon afterwards he published The Queen's Wake, a legendary poem, which made and maintains his fame as a poet. By the kindness of the Buccleugh family, he was granted a farm at a nominal rent; but he was again unfortunate in his agricultural speculations. His nature was too enthusiastic and too generous to be guided by prudence, and although favoured by many circumstances, and always working hard, he ended his days almost as poor in worldly wealth as when he began, but rich in the affection of all who knew him. Twenty years after his death, government granted a pension to his widow. Blackie & Son publish a complete edition of his works, of which-besides those mentioned above-the most notable are: Pilgrims of the Sun, The Hunting of Badlewe; The Poetic Mirror -imitations of the most popular bards then living; The Jacobite Relics of Scotland-many of the songs in this collection are original; Miscellaneous Poems; The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and other Tales; The Three Perils of Man: The Three Perils of Woman; The Shepherd's Calendar; &c. &c. Professor Wilson in the Noctes, with which Hogg is intimately identified as "The Shepherd," said: "The Queen's Wake is a garland of fair forest flowers, bound with a band of rushes from the moor. . . . Some of the ballads are very beautiful; one or two even splendid; most of them spirited. 'Kilmeny' alone ⚫ places our (ay, our) Shepherd among the Undying Ones." Lord Jeffrey felt justified by "Kilmeny" in assuring the author that he was "a poet in the highest acceptation of the name."]

...

Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen;
But it wasna to meet Duneira's men,
Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see,
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
It was only to hear the Yorlin sing,
And pu' the cress-flower round the spring;
The scarlet hypp and the hindberrye,
And the nut that hung frae the hazel-tree;
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
But lang may her minny look o'er the wa',
And lang may she seek i' the greenwood shaw;
Lang the laird of Duneira blame,

And lang, lang greet, or Kilmeny come hame!

When many lang day had come and fled, When grief grew calm, and hope was dead, When mess for Kilmeny's soul had been sung,

When the bedes-man had prayed, and the dead-bell

rung:

Late, late in a gloamin when all was still,
When the fringe was red on the westlin hill,
The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane,
The reek o' the cot hung o'er the plain,
Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
When the ingle lowed wi' an eiry leme,
Late, late in the gloamin Kilmeny came hame!

"Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been? Lang hae we sought baith holt and dean; By linn, by ford, and green-wood tree, Yet you are halesome and fair to see. Where gat you that joup o' the lily sheen? That bonny snood o' the birk sae green? And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen?Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?"

Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace, But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny's face; As still was her look, and as still was her ee, As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea, Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea. For Kilmeny had been she kenn'd not where, And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare ; Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew, Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew. But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung, And the airs of heaven played round her tongue, When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen, And a land where sin had never been; A land of love, and a land of light, Withouten sun, or moon, or night; Where the river swa'd a living stream, And the light a pure and cloudless beam; The land of vision it would seem, A still, an everlasting dream.

In yon green wood there is a waik, And in that waik there is a wene,

And in that wene there is a maike, That neither has flesh, nor blood, nor bane; And down in yon green wood he walks his lane.

In that green wene Kilmeny lay, Her bosom happed wi' flowerets gay; But the air was soft and the silence deep, And bonny Kilmeny fell sound asleep. She kenn'd nae mair, nor opened her ee, Till waked by the hymns of a far countrye.

She woke on a couch of the silk sae slim, All striped wi' the bars of the rainbow's rim; And lovely beings round were rife, Who erst had travelled mortal life; And aye they smiled, and 'gan to speer, "What spirit has brought this mortal here?"

"Lang have I ranged the world wide,"

A meek and reverend fere replied; "Baith night and day I have watched the fair, Eident a thousand years and mair.

Yes, I have watched o'er ilk degree,
Wherever blooms ferenitye;
And sinless virgin, free of stain
In mind and body, fand I nane.
Never, since the banquet of time,
Found I a virgin in her prime,
Till late this bonny maiden I saw
As spotless as the morning snaw.
Full twenty years she has lived as free

As the spirits that sojourn in this countrye:
I have brought her away frae the snares of men,
That sin or death she never may ken."

They clasped her waist and her hands sae fair, They kiss'd her cheek, and they kemed her hair; And round came many a blooming fere, Saying, "Bonny Kilmeny, ye're welcome here! Women are freed of the littand scorn:

O, blessed be the day Kilmeny was born!
Now shall the land of the spirits see,
Now shall it ken what a woman may be!
Many lang year in sorrow and pain,

Many lang year through the world we've gane,
Commissioned to watch fair womankind,
For it's they who nurse the immortal mind.
We have watched their steps as the dawning shone,
And deep in the green-wood walks alone;
By lily bower, and silken bed,

The viewless tears have o'er them shed;

Have soothed their ardent minds to sleep,
Or left the couch of love to weep.

We have seen! we have seen! but the time maun come,
And the angels will weep at the day of doom!

"O, would the fairest of mortal kind Aye keep these holy truths in mind, That kindred spirits their motions see, Who watch their ways with anxious ee, And grieve for the guilt of humanitye! O, sweet to Heaven the maiden's prayer, And the sigh that heaves a bosom sae fair! And dear to Heaven the words of truth, And the praise of virtue frae beauty's mouth! And dear to the viewless forms of air The mind that kythes as the body fair!

"O, bonny Kilmeny! free frae stain,
If ever you seek the world again,
That world of sin, of sorrow, and fear,

O tell of the joys that are waiting here;
And tell of the signs you shall shortly see;
Of the times that are now, and the times that shall
be."

They lifted Kilmeny, they led her away, And she walked in the light of a sunless day: The sky was a dome of crystal bright, The fountain of vision, and fountain of light: The emerant fields were of dazzling glow, And the flowers of everlasting blow. Then deep in the stream her body they laid, That her youth and beauty never might fade;

And they smiled on heaven, when they saw her lie
In the stream of life that wandered by.

And she heard a song, she heard it sung,
She kenn'd not where; but sae sweetly it rung,
It fell on her ear like a dream of the morn:-
"O! blest be the day Kilmeny was born!
Now shall the land of the spirits see,
Now shall it ken what a woman may be!
The sun that shines on the world sae bright,
A borrowed gleid frae the fountain of light;
And the moon that sleeks the sky sae dun,
Like a gouden bow, or a beamless sun,
Shall wear away and be seen nae mair,
And the angels shall miss them travelling the air.
But lang, lang after baith night and day,
When the sun and the world have fled away;
When the sinner has gaen to his waesome doom,
Kilmeny shall smile in eternal bloom!"

They bore her away, she wist not how,
For she felt not arm nor rest below;

But so swift they wained her through the light,
'Twas like the motion of sound or sight;
They seemed to split the gales of air,
And yet nor gale nor breeze was there.
Unnumbered groves below them grew;
They came, they pass'd, and backward flew,
Like floods of blossoms gliding on,

A moment seen, in a moment gone.
O, never vales to mortal view
Appeared like those o'er which they flew !
That land to human spirits given,

The lowermost vales of the storied heaven:
From thence they can view the world below,
And heaven's blue gates with sapphires glow,
More glory yet unmeet to know.

They bore her far to a mountain green, To see what mortal never had seen; And they seated her high on a purple sward, And bade her heed what she saw and heard; And note the changes the spirits wrought, For now she lived in the land of thought. She looked, and she saw nor sun nor skies, But a crystal dome of a thousand dies; She looked, and she saw nae land aright, But an endless whirl of glory and light: And radiant beings went and came Far swifter than wind, or the linked flame. She hid her een frae the dazzling view; She looked again, and the scene was new.

She saw a sun on a summer sky,
And clouds of amber sailing by;
A lovely land beneath her lay,

And that land had lakes and mountains gray;
And that land had valleys and hoary piles,
And marled seas and a thousand isles.
Its fields were speckled, its forests green.
And its lakes were all of the dazzling sheen,

Like magic mirrors, where slumbering lay
The sun and the sky, and the cloudlet gray;
Which heaved and trembled, and gently swung,
On every shore they seemed to be hung:
For there they were seen on their downward plain
A thousand times, and a thousand again;

In winding lake, and placid firth,

Little peaceful heavens in the bosom of earth.

Kilmeny sighed and seemed to grieve, For she found her heart to that land did cleave;

She saw the corn wave on the vale,

She saw the deer run down the dale;

She saw the plaid and the broad claymore,

And the brows that the badge of freedom bore;And she thought she had seen the land before.

She saw a lady sit on a throne, The fairest that ever the sun shone on: A lion licked her hand of milk,

And she held him in a leish of silk; And a leífu' maiden stood at her knee, With a silver wand and melting ee; Her sovereign shield till love stole in, And poisoned all the fount within.

Then a gruff untoward bedes man came, And hundit the lion on his dame;

And the guardian maid wi' the dauntless ee, She dropped a tear, and left her knee;

And she saw till the queen frae the lion fled,
Till the bonniest flower of the world lay dead;
A coffin was set on a distant plain,

And she saw the red blood fall like rain:
Then bonny Kilmeny's heart grew sair,
And she turned away, and could look nae mair.

Then the gruff grim carle girned amain, And they trampled him down, but he rose again; And he baited the lion to deeds of weir, Till he lapped the blood to the kingdom dear; And weening his head was danger-preef, When crowned with the rose and clover-leaf, He gowled at the carle, and chased him away To feed wi' the deer on the mountain gray. He gowled at the carle, and he gecked at Heaven, But his mark was set, and his arles given. Kilmeny a while her een withdrew; She looked again, and the scene was new.

She saw below her fair unfurled
One half of all the glowing world,
Where oceans rolled, and rivers ran,
To bound the aims of sinful man.
She saw a people, fierce and fell,
Burst frae their bounds like fiends of hell;
There lilies grew, and the eagle flew,
And she herked on her ravening crew,

Till the cities and towers were wrapt in a blaze,
And the thunder it roared o'er the lands and the seas.
The widows wailed, and the red blood ran,
And she threatened an end to the race of man:

She never lened, nor stood in awe,
Till caught by the lion's deadly paw.
Oh! then the eagle swinked for life,
And brainzelled up a mortal strife;
But flew she north, or flew she south,
She met wi' the gowl of the lion's mouth.

With a mooted wing and waefu' maen, The eagle sought her eiry again;

But lang may she cower in her bloody nest, And lang, lang sleek her wounded breast, Before she sey another flight,

To play wi' the norland lion's might.

But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw, So far surpassing nature's law,

The singer's voice wad sink away,

And the string of his harp wad cease to play.
But she saw till the sorrows of man were by,
And all was love and harmony;-

Till the stars of heaven fell calmly away,
Like the flakes of snaw on a winter day.

Then Kilmeny begged again to see The friends she had left in her ain countrye, To tell of the place where she had been, And the glories that lay in the land unseen; 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, All happed with flowers in the green-wood wene. When seven lang years had come and fled; When grief was calm, and hope was dead; When scarce 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 ee! 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 keep afar frae the haunts of men;
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 blythely round the field,
The lordly byson lowed and kneeled;
The dun deer wooed with manner bland,
And cowered aneath her lily hand.
And when at eve the woodlands rung,
When hymns of other worlds she sung

In ecstasy of sweet devotion,

O, then the glen was all in motion!
The wild beasts of the forest came.
Broke from their boughts and faulds the tame,
And goved around, charmed and amazed;
Even the dull cattle crooned and gazed,
And murmured and looked with anxious pain
For something the mystery to explain.

The buzzard came with the throstle-cock;

The corby left her houf in the rock;
The black bird 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;
The hawk and the herm 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!

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 seen. But O, the words that fell from her mouth, Were words of wonder and words of truth! But all the land were in fear and dread, For they kendna whether she was living or dead. It wasna her hame, and she couldua remain; She left this world of sorrow and pain, And returned to the land of thought again.

FRANK KENNEDY.

[William Hamilton Maxwell, born in Ireland, 1794; died 1850. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin; accompanied the army in the Peninsula, and afterwards became rector of Ballagh in Connaught. His chief works are: Stories of Waterloo-from which we quote the following sketch-Wild Sports of the West; Captain Blake; The Dark Lady of Doona; The Bivouac, or Stories of the Peninsular War; Life of the Duke of Wellington; Rambling Recollections of a Soldier of For

tune; Hector O'Halloran; Bryan O'Lynn, &c. A critic in the Dublin University Magazine says: "He it was who first suggested what may be called the military novel. His Stories of Waterloo opened that path which subsequently he treaded with such success, while a host of imitators have followed in his rear."]

My father left the carabineers some years before the Irish rebellion of ninety-eight. Like greater warriors, the crop of laurels he collected in that celebrated corps was but a short one. It is true he had seen service: his sword, like Butler's knight's, of "passing worth," had been unsheathed in executing "warrants and exigents;" and more than once he had stormed a private distillery, under the leading of a desperate gauger.

fellow, and found favour in my mother's sight. She had reached the wrong side of thirty; consequently she made but a short resistance, and bestowed her hand and fortune on the bold dragoon. My mother was an heiress, but the estate of Killnacoppal owed "a trifle of money:" now a trifle in Connaught is sometimes a sweeping sum; and you cannot safely calculate on rents in Connemara being paid exactly to the day.

I never exhibited precocity of intellect; but before I was sixteen I discovered that our es tablishment occasionally suffered from a scarcity of specie. At these times my father was sure to be afflicted with cold or rheumatism, and never left the house; and I suppose, for fear of disturbing him, the hall door was but seldom opened, and then only to a particular friend; while an ill-favoured tradesman or suspicious-looking stranger received their com mands in the briefest manner from an upper window.

What was to be done with me had cruelly puzzled both my parents: and whether I should ornament the church, or benefit the revenue, was for a long time under consideration. The law, however, held out more promising pros pects than either; and it was decided that I should be bound to an attorney.

**

Duncan Davidson of Dorset Street, Dublin, was married to my father's sister. He was of Scotch descent, and like that thinking people" from whom he sprung, he held "a hard grip of the main chance." Duncan was wealthy and childless, and if he could be induced to bring me up at his feet, God knows what might be the consequence. My father accordingly made the application, and the gracious Duncan consented to receive me for a time on trial.

What a bustle there was in Killnacoppal when my uncle's letter arrived! due preparations were made for my departure; and as the term of my absence was computed at seven years, I had to take a formal and affectionate leave of my relatives to the fifteenth degree of consanguinity. My aunt Macan, whose cat's leg I had unfortunately dislocated, and who had not spoken to me since Candlemas, was induced to relent on the occasion, and favoured me with her blessing and a one-pound note, although she had often declared she never could banish the idea from her mind, but that I' should travel at the public expense, if my career were not finished in a more summary