Then Kilmeny begged again to see The friends she had left in her own countrye, To tell of the place where she had been, And the glories that lay in the land unseen. 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 greenwood 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 oh, her beauty was fair to see, But still and steadfast was her e'e; Such beauty bard inay 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 melodie,
That floats along the twilight sea.
But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
And keeped 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 blithely round the field,
The lordly bison bowed 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,
Oh, 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
For something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard came with the throstle-cock;

The corbie left her houff 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 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!

When a month and a day had come and gane,
Kilmeny sought the greenwood wene,
There laid her down on the leaves so green,
And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen!

THE SKYLARK.

BIRD of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,

Sweet be thy matin o'er mountain and lea!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place

O to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay and loud,
Far in the downy cloud,

Love gives it energy, love gave it birth,
Where, on thy dewy wing,

Where art thou journeying?

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

O'er fell and fountain sheen,

O'er moor and mountain green,

O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,

Over the cloudlet dim,

Over the rainbow's rim,

Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!

Then, when the gloaming comes,

Low in the heather blooms,

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place—

O to abide in the desert with thee!

Sir Walter Scott.

Born 1771.
Died 1832.

SCOTT was born at Edinburgh, on the 15th August 1771. His father was a Writer to the Signet, and a relative of the Scotts of Buccleuch. In early life Scott was in very delicate health, and a lameness, resulting from a fever, led to his being sent to his paternal grandfather's, near Kelso, where his youth was chiefly spent, and where he filled his young mind with the romantic tales of Border chivalry. After passing through the High School and University of Edinburgh with credit, Scott was apprenticed to his father as a writer, after which he studied for the bar, and was admitted of the Faculty of Advocates in 1792. In 1796 he married Miss Charlotte M. Carpenter, whom he had first met at a watering-place in Cumberland, and the young couple removed to Lasswade, where they spent some years in great happiness. In 1799 Scott obtained the appointment of sheriff of Selkirkshire, with L.300 a-year. He now paid a visit to the Borders, partly on official duty and partly to collect ballad poetry, which he published in 1802, under the title " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." After some other labours of a similar kind, at length appeared, in 1805, the original poem "The Lay of the Last Minstrel;" it met with instant and unprecedented success, and stamped his character as one of the highest of our native poets. In 1808 appeared "Marmion," and in 1810 "The Lady of the Lake," the latter being the most popular of his poems, even to this day. In 1811 was published "The Vision of Don Roderick;" in 1813, "Rokeby;" and in 1814, "The Lord of the Isles." These later pieces did not by any means meet with the success that attended his earlier pieces; Scott, with the instinct of genius, felt that the old mine gave symptoms of being worked out, and devoted himself to prose fiction; and as the author of "Waverley," "Ivanhoe," "The Antiquary," &c., his name rose still higher in the ear of fame. In 1820 George the Fourth conferred on him the honour of baronetcy.

Scott had, in 1811, purchased the estate of Cartley Hole, near Melrose; and here he built the romantic mansion-house of Abbotsford, which name he gave to the whole estate which he had enlarged from year to year by successive purchases. Here he received innumerable visitors of all ranks, from the prince downward; and his establishment, conducted on the most liberal scale, was sustained by the enormous sums made by his writings.

Unfortunately for Scott, he had in 1805 been induced to join in partnership with James Ballantyne, a printer in Edinburgh, and afterwards to form intimate relations with the firm of Constable, a publisher. In 1826 the latter firm failed, and on examining the mixed liabilities of the two businesses, it was found that Scott was indebted upwards of L.100,000. To any ordinary man this would have been crushing, but it only roused Scott to exertion; he would listen to no compromise with his creditors, and prepared, by the fruits of his pen, to clear off the whole. He actually, in a few years, made up about L.70,000 of this sum; but his health gave way. In 1831 he was persuaded to take a foreign tour, in the hope of re-establishing it; the Admiralty furnished a ship, and he sailed for Naples. But it was too late; both

body and mind were hopelessly shattered, and he returned home to Abbotsford only to die. In his latter moments he had read to him, from time to time, favourite passages from the Bible; and on the 21st September 1832 he breathed his last, in the presence of all his children.

THE MINSTREL.

THE way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His wither'd cheek, and tresses grey,
Seem'd to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy.
The last of all the Bards was he,
Who sung of Border chivalry;
For, well-a-day! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppress'd,
Wish'd to be with them, and at rest.
No more on prancing palfrey borne,
He caroll'd light as lark at morn;
No longer courted and caress'd,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He pour'd, to lord and lady gay,

The unpremeditated lay:

Old times were changed, old manners gone;

A stranger fill'd the Stuarts' throne;

The bigots of the iron time

Had call'd his harmless art a crime.

A wandering Harper, scorn'd and poor,
He begg'd his bread from door to door.
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.

MELROSE ABBEY.

Ir thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;

For the gay beams of lightsome day,
Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey.

When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;

When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;

When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die; When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,

Then go but go alone the while-
Then view St David's ruin'd pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair!

LOVE OF COUNTRY.

BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band

That knits me to thy rugged strand!
Still, as I view each well-known scene,
Think what is now, and what hath been,
Seems as, to me, of all bereft,

Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;

And thus I love them better still,

Even in extremity of ill.

By Yarrow's streams still let me stray,