O blest are the Hearers, and proud be the Hand Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a

Band;

I am glad for him, blind as he is ! — all the while If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a

smile.

That tall Man, a Giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight ;
Can he keep himself still, if he would ? oh, not he!
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.

There's a Cripple who leans on his Crutch; like a

Tower That long has leaned forward, leans hour after

hour! A Mother, whose Spirit in fetters is bound, While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.

Now, Coaches and Chariots ! roar on like a stream; Here are twenty souls happy as Souls in a dream : They are deaf to your murmurs - they care not

for you,

Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue !

XVII.

STEPPING WESTWARD.

While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of

Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sun-set, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, “ What you are stepping westward.”

“ What you are stepping westward?” " Yea.”

'Twould be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange Land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance :
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a Sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;

And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny :
I liked the greeting ; 'twas a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native Lake :
The salutation had to me
The
very

sound of courtesy :
Its
power

was felt; and while my eye Was fixed upon the glowing sky, The echo of the voice enwrought A human sweetness with the thought Of travelling through the world that lay Before me in my endless way.

XVIII.

GLEN-ALMAIN,

OR

THE NARROW GLEN.

In this still place, remote from men,
Sleeps Ossian, in the NARROW GLEN;
In this still place, where murmurs on
But one meek Streamlet, only one :
He sang of battles, and the breath
Of stormy war, and violent death ;
And should, methinks, when all was past,
Have rightfully been laid at last
Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent
As by a spirit turbulent;
Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,
And every thing unreconciled;
In some complaining, dim retreat,
For fear and melancholy meet;
But this is calm; there cannot be
A more entire tranquillity.

Does then the Bard sleep here indeed ? Or is it but a groundless creed? What matters it ? — I blame them not Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot Was moved ; and in this way expressed Their notion of its perfect rest. A Convent, even a hermit's Cell Would break the silence of this Dell : It is not quiet, is not ease ; But something deeper far than these : The separation that is here Is of the grave; and of austere And happy feelings of the dead : And, therefore, was it rightly said That Ossian, last of all his race! Lies buried in this lonely place,