The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem,
Though beautiful, cold-strange-as in a dream,
I dreamed long ago, now new begun.
The short-lived paly Summer is but won
From Winter's ague, for one hour's gleam;
Though sapphire-warm, their stars do never beam:
All is cold Beauty; pain is never done:
For who has mind to relish, Minos-wise,
The Real of Beauty, free from that dead hue
Sickly imagination and sick pride

Cast wan upon it! Burns! with honour due

I oft have honour'd thee. Great shadow! hide Thy face; I sin against thy native skies.

234

WRITTEN IN BURNS' COTTAGE.

T

HIS mortal body of a thousand days

Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own
room,

Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,
Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!
My pulse is warm with thine own Barley-bree,
My head is light with pledging a great soul,
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal;
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find
The meadow thou hast tramped o'er and o'er,—
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind,-
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name,-
O smile among the shades, for this is fame!

Ο

MEG MERRILIES.

LD MEG she was a gipsy,

And lived upon the moors:

Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
And her house was out of doors.
Her apples were swart blackberries,
Her currants, pods o' broom;

Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
Her book a church-yard tomb.

Her brothers were the craggy hills,
Her sisters larchen trees;

Alone with her great family

She lived as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,
No dinner many a noon,

And, 'stead of supper, she would stare
Full hard against the moon.

But every morn, of woodbine fresh
She made her garlanding,

And, every night, the dark glen yew
She wove, and she would sing.
And with her fingers, old and brown,
She plaited mats of rushes,

And gave them to the cottagers
She met among the bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen,
And tall as Amazon;

An old red blanket cloak she wore,

A ship-hat had she on:

God rest her aged bones somewhere!

She died full long agone!

H

SONNET ON AILSA ROCK.

EARKEN, thou craggy ocean-pyramid, Give answer by thy voice-the seafowls' screams!

When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?

When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid?
How long is't since the mighty Power bid

Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams—
Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams-
Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid!
Thou answer'st not; for thou art dead asleep.
Thy life is but two dead eternities,

The last in air, the former in the deep!

First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies! Drown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep, Another cannot wake thy giant-size!

Sue beatse

Fetter to Bailey from Inverary, T biely 18th, 1818.

Vol. I.213

WALKING IN SCOTLAND.

HERE is a charm in footing slow across a silent plain,

Where patriot battle had been fought, where glory had the gain;

There is a pleasure on the heath, where Druids old have been,

Where mantles grey have rustled by, and swept the nettled green;

There is a joy in every spot made known in times

of old,

New to the feet although each tale a hundred times be told;

There is a deeper joy than all, more solemn in the heart,

More parching to the tongue than all, of more divine a smart,