A STERN FATHER'S LATE REPENT.

ANCE.

THAT morning found rough Tushilaw

In all the father's guise appear;

An end of all his hopes he saw
Shrouded in Mary's gilded bier.

No eye could trace without concern

The suffering warrior's troubled look-
The throbs that heav'd his bosom stern
No ear could bear, no heart could brook.

"Woe be to thee, thou wicked dame!
My Mary's prayers and accents mild
Might well have render'd vengeance lame-
This hand could ne'er have slain my child.

"But thou, in frenzied fatal hour,

Reft the sweet life thou gav'st away, And crush'd to earth the fairest flower That ever breathed the breeze of day.

"My all is lost, my hope is fled,

The sword shall ne'er be drawn for me;
Unblest, unhonour'd, my gray head-
My child-would I had died for thee!"

The bells toll o'er a new-made grave;
The lengthen'd funeral train is seen
Stemming the Yarrow's silver wave,
And dark'ning Dryhope holms so green.

From The Queen's Wake.

THE HARP OF TEVIOT.

LINES ON THE DEATH OF DR. JOHN LEYDEN.

WHY weeps the poplar o'er the stream?
Why wails the chilly winter gale?
Why starts the peasant from his dream
Adown the links of Teviotdale ?

What strain was that so wild, so sweet,
A hymn of heaven that strain must be,
To theme so thrilling, wo so sweet,
So soft the midnight melody!

It flows not from yon streamer pale,
Nor from the window'd choirs of bliss ;
Ye maidens fair of Teviotdale,

What wild, what wondrous song is this?

A thoughtful shepherd, fair and young,
Upraised his head to list the strain;
And aye

rung, and aye it sung;

But every note was fraught with pain.

Full well the fairy sound he knew;
It waver'd from the poplar pale,
Where parting genius weeping threw
The magic Harp of Teviotdale.

So sweetly down the dale it rung,
The breeze of midnight died away,
The falcon o'er the poplar hung,

The fieldfare, and the merlin gray.

The wakeful cock forgot to crow,

The snow-birds flocked around the tree, And ravish'd, sunk in trance of woe, Thrilled by the melting melody.

It rang so low, it rang so long,

Few were the notes the youth could hear, But aye the burden of the song

Was, "Soundly sleeps my Minstrel dear."

"The gray moss o'er my strings shall spread, My notes must die adown the vale,

Since lowly lies the Minstrel's head
That tuned the Harp of Teviotdale.

"LEYDEN is fallen, and genius weeps!
Leyden to me, to nature true;

Sound, sound the bard of Teviot sleeps!
-Sweet Minstrel of the vale, adieu.

"His lonely grave may balm entwine
With bandalets so beauteously;
Weep o'er his dust, the purple vine,
And wave the wild banana tree.

"Ye spirits of that vernal clime,
Around his grave your vigils keep,
And wake the choral hymn sublime,
To soothe my Leyden's slumbers deep;

"For, ah! that soul of fire is fled,

To dream o'er fields of wondrous lore; And consecrate my rural reed,

66

A Harp of Heaven for evermore.

Long may the Harp of Teviotdale Forgotten on the poplar hang, Save when the spirits of the vale At midnight twang my runic string."

Slow died its wailing sound away;

The shepherd sought the poplar pale, And reached his skilless hand to play The heavenly Harp of Teviotdale.

A spirit clove the welkin gray,

Swift as the motion of the mind; The sacred symbol snatch'd away,

And mounted on the murmuring wind.