But were I now where Allan glides,
Or heard my native Devon's tides,
So sweetly would I rest and pray,
That heaven would close my wintry day.

"Twas thus my hair they bade me braid,
They bade me to the church repair;
It was my bridal morn, they said,

And my true love would meet me there.-
But woe betide the cruel guile,
That drowned in blood the morning smile!
And woe betide the fairy dream;

I only waked to sob and scream !

Sir Walter Scott.

EXTEMPORE.

219

By the Rev. Dr John Erskine on hearing an Officer swear.

Soldier so tender of thy prince's fame,
Why so profuse of a much higher name?
For thy King's sake the brunt of battle bear,
But for the King of kings' sake do not swear.

WRITTEN IN THE CASE OF A WATCH.

See, reader, here, in youth, or age, or prime,
The stealing steps of never-ending time;
With wisdom mark the moment as it flies,
Think what a moment is to him who dies.

THE POWER OF FAITH.

'Twas summer, and a Sabbath eve,
And balmy was the air,

I saw a sight that made me grieve,
And yet the sight was fair,

For in a coffin lay

Two little babes as sweet as May.

Like waxen dolls that infants dress
Their little bodies were;
A look of placid happiness
Did on each face appear.

Anon.

And in a coffin short and wide
They lay together, side by side.

Their mother, as a lily pale,

Sat near them on a bed,
And bending o'er them told her tale,
And many a tear she shed.
But oft she cried, amidst her pain,
My babes and I shall meet again.

THE WALL-FLOWER.

Why loves my flower, (the sweetest flower
That swells the golden breast of May,)
Thrown rudely o'er the ruined tower
To waste her solitary day?

' Why, when the mead, the spicy vale,
The grove, and genial garden call,
Will she her fragrant soul exhale,
Unheeded on the lonely wall?

Anon.

For never sure was beauty born
To lay in death's deserted shade:
Come, lovely flower, my banks adorn,
My banks for love and beauty made.”

Thus pity waked the tender thought,

And by her sweet persuasion led, To seize the hermit flower I sought, And bear her from her stony bed.—

I sought-but sudden on my ear
A voice in hollow murmur broke,
And smote my heart with hollow fear-
The genius of the ruin spoke :

From thee be far the ungentle deed, The honours of the dead to spoil; Or take the sole remaining meed,

The flower that crowns their former toil!

Nor deem that flower the garden's foe, Or fond to grace the barren shade, 'Tis nature tells her to bestow

Her honours on the lonely dead!—

For this obedient zephyrs bear

Her light seed round yon turrets mold,
And undispersed by tempests there,
They rise in vegetable gold.

Nor shall thy wonder wake to see, Such desert scenes destruction crave, Oft have they been, and oft shall be Truth's, honour's, valour's, beauty's grave.

'When longs to fall that rifted spire,

As weary the insulting air,

The poet's thought, the warrior's fire,
The lover's sighs are sleeping there.—

• When that too shakes the trembling ground,
Borne down by some tempestuous sky,
And many a slumbering cottage round
Startles how still their hearts will lie.

"Of them who, wrapped in earth so cold, No more the smiling day shall view, Should many a tender tale be told,

For many a tender thought is due.