.64 LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. My father, my father, and seest thou not The Erl King's daughters in yon dim spot? "My son, my son, I see and I know 'Tis the old gray willow that shimmers* so." "I love thee; thy beauty has ravished my sense; And, willing or not, I will carry thee hence." "O father, the Erl King now puts forth his arm! O father, the Erl King has done me harm!” The father shudders; he hurries on; LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. — Burns, Now nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree, And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, But nought can glad the weary wight That fast in durance lies. Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, The merle, in his noontide bower, *Gleams with an uncertain light. LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. The mavis wild, wi' many a note, Now blooms the lily by the bank, I was the queen o' bonnie France, And never-ending care. But as for thee, thou false woman,* My sister and my foe! Grim vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword That through thy soul shall go; The weeping blood in woman's breast Was never known to thee; Nor the balm that drops on wounds of woe 165 * Elizabeth, Queen of England, who unjustly detained her in prison. My son !* my son ! may kinder stars And may those pleasures gild thy reign And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, O, soon, to me, may summer suns And in the narrow house of death And the next flowers that deck the spring AVARICE. — George Herbert. MONEY, thou bane of bliss, and source of woe, Surely thou didst so little contribute To this great kingdom which thou now hast got, * James the First, King of England. THE TRUMPET. Then forcing thee by fire he made thee bright; Man calleth thee his wealth, who made thee rich, 167 THE TRUMPET. — Mrs. Hemans. THE trumpet's voice hath roused the land; A hundred banners to the breeze was that the sound of seas? A king to war went past. The chief is arming in his hall, The mother on her first-born son They come not back, though all be won, The bard hath ceased his song, and bound The falchion to his side ; E'en for the marriage-altar crowned, The lover quits his bride. 168 FAREWELL TO THE MUSE. And all this haste, and change, and fear, How will it be when kingdoms hear FAREWELL TO THE MUSE.-Sir W. Scott. ENCHANTRESS, farewell! who so oft has decoyed me, At the close of the evening, through woodlands to roam, Where the forester, lated, with wonder espied me Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home. Farewell! and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking, The language alternate of rapture and woe; O, none but some lover, whose heart-strings are break ing, The pang that I feel at our parting can know! Each joy thou couldst double, and when there came sorrow, Or pale disappointment, to darken my way, What voice was like thine, that could sing of to-morrow Till forgot in the strain was the grief of to-day! But when friends drop around us in life's weary wan ing, The grief, queen of numbers, thou canst not assuage; Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining, The languor of pain, and the chillness of age. 'T was thou that once taught me, in accents bewailing, |