208

THE VOICE OF DEPARTED FRIENDSHIP.

Were each grey hair a minstrel-string,
Each chord should imprecations fling,
Till startled Scotland loud should ring,
'Revenge for blood and treachery!'"

WALTER SCOTT.

The Voice of Departed Friendship.

HAD a friend who died in early youth!
And often in those melancholy dreams,
When my soul travels through the umbrage deep
That shades the silent world of memory,

Methinks I hear his voice! sweet as the breath
Of balmy ground-flowers, stealing from some spot
Of sunshine sacred, in a gloomy wood,

To everlasting spring.

In the churchyard

Where now he sleeps-the day before he died,
Silent we sat together on a grave;

Till gently laying his pale hand on mine,
Pale in the moonlight that was coldly sleeping
On heaving sod and marble monument—
This was the music of his last farewell!-

THE VOICE OF DEPARTED FRIENDSHIP.

"Weep not, my brother! though thou seest me led By short and easy stages, day by day,

With motion almost imperceptible

Into the quiet grave. God's will be done!
Even when a boy, in doleful solitude

My soul oft sate within the shadow of death!
And when I looked along the laughing earth,
Up the blue heavens, and through the middle air
Joyfully ringing with the skylark's song,

I wept! and thought how sad for one so young
To bid farewell to so much happiness.

But Christ hath called me from this lower world,
Delightful though it be-and when I

gaze

On the green earth, and all its happy hills,
'Tis with such feelings as a man beholds
A little farm which he is doomed to leave
On an appointed day. Still more and more
He loves it as that mournful day draws near,
But has prepared his heart-and is resigned."
-Then lifting up his radiant eyes to heaven,
He said, with fervent voice-" O, what were life,
Even in the warm and summer-light of joy,
Without those hopes, that, like refreshing gales
At evening from the sea, come o'er the soul
Breathed from the ocean of eternity.

-And oh! without them who could bear the storms

That fall in roaring blackness o'er the waters

Of agitated life! Then hopes arise

All round our sinking souls, like those fair birds

D D

209

210

THE VOICE OF DEPARTED FRIENDSHIP.

O'er whose soft plumes the tempest hath no power,
Waving their snow-white wings amid the darkness,
And wiling us with gentle motion, on

To some calm island! on whose silvery strand
Drooping at once, they fold their silent pinions--
And, as we touch the shores of paradise,

In love and beauty walk around our feet!"

A Red, Red Rose.

MY luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O, my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands of life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

BURNS.

[ROBERT BURNS, the national poet of Scotland, was the son of a poor peasant farmer in Ayrshire; but humble as was his birth, his education was of a far better order than usually falls to the lot of men in his position in England. His career was unfortunate, and unhappily his misfortunes were partly sel ́-inflicted; but the charge of intemperance laid at his door by many writers seems to have been greatly exaggerated. Of his poems it is needless to speak. Their pathos, vigour, and humour have been universally acknowledged, and thousands of delighted readers have borne testimony to the genius of the Ayrshire ploughman, peasant farmer, and exciseman. Even when subjected to the diluting process of translation, the spirit of his poems is not lost; and in the German, in particular, Burns's poems have been largely circulated and eagerly studied.]

The Female Convict to her Infant.

H! sleep not, my babe, for the morn

of to-morrow

Shall soothe me to slumber more

tranquil than thine;

The dark grave shall shield me. from shame and from sorrow,

Though the deeds and the doom of the guilty

are mine.

Not long shall the arm of affection enfold thee;

Not long shalt thou hang on thy mother's fond breast;

And who with the eye of delight shall behold thee, And watch thee, and guard thee, when I am at rest?

And yet it doth grieve me to wake thee, my dearest,
The pangs of thy desolate mother to see ;

Thou wilt weep when the clank of my cold chain thou hearest,

And none but the guilty should mourn over me.

And yet I must wake thee—for while thou art weeping, To calm thee, I stifle my tears for awhile;

But thou smil'st in thy dreams, while thus placidly sleeping,

And, oh! how it wounds me to gaze on thy smile!