XI

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

O LOVERS' eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers' ears in hearing;
And love, in life's extremity,

Can lend an hour of cheering.
Disease had been in Mary's bower,
And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower,
To watch her love's returning.

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
Her form decayed by pining,
Till through her wasted hand, at night,
You saw the taper shining;

By fits, a sultry hectic hue

Across her cheek was flying;

By fits, so ashy pale she grew,
Her maidens thought her dying.

Yet keenest powers, to see and hear,
Seemed in her frame residing;
Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear,
She heard her lover's riding;

Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd,
She knew, and waved to greet him;
And o'er the battlement did bend,
As on the wing to meet him.

He came he passed-an heedless gaze,
As o'er some stranger glancing;
Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
Lost in his courser's prancing-

The castle arch, whose hollow tone
Returns each whisper spoken,
Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
Which told her heart was broken.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

XII

AIRLY BEACON

AIRLY BEACON, Airly Beacon,
Oh the pleasant sight to see
Shires and towns from Airly Beacon,
While my love climbed up to me!

Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon,

Oh the happy hours we lay
Deep in fern on Airly Beacon
Courting through the summer's day!

Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon,
Oh the weary haunt for me,

All alone on Airly Beacon,
With his baby on my knee !

CHARLES KIngsley.

XIII

(ELOISA TO ABELARD)

THOU know'st how guiltless first I met thy flame, When Love approach'd me under Friendship's name; My fancy form'd thee of angelic kind,

Some emanation of th' all-beauteous Mind.

Those smiling eyes, attempering every ray,
Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day.
Guiltless I gazed; Heav'n listen'd while you sung;
And truths divine came mended from that tongue.
From lips like those what precept fail'd to move?
Too soon they taught me 'twas no sin to love:
Back through the paths of pleasing sense I ran,
Nor wish'd an angel whom I loved a man.
Dim and remote the joys of saints I see,
Nor envy them that heaven I lose for thee.

ALEXANDER POPE.

XIV

BRIGHT star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung alost the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moorsNo-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, Half passionless-and so swoon on to death. JOHN KEATS.

XV

DAFT JEAN

DAFT JEAN,

The waesome wean,

She cam' by the cottage, she cam' by the ha',

The laird's ha' o' Wutherstanelaw,

The cottar's cot by the birken shaw;

An' aye she gret,

To ilk ane she met,

For the trumpet had blawn an' her lad was awa'.

"Black, black," sang she,

"Black, black my weeds shall be,

My love has widowed me!

Black, black!" sang she.

Daft Jean, the waesome wean,

She cam' by the cottage, she cam' by the ha',

The laird's ha' o' Wutherstanelaw,

The cottar's cot by the birken shaw;

Nae mair she creepit,

Nae mair she weepit,

She stept 'mang the lasses the queen o' them a'. The queen o' them a',

The queen o' them a',

She stept 'mang the lasses the queen o' them a', For the fight it was fought i' the fiel' far awa', An' claymore in han' for his love an' his lan', The lad she lo'ed best he was foremost to fa'.

66

'White, white," sang she,

"White, white my weeds shall be,

I am no widow," sang she,

"White, white, my weeds shall be,

White, white!" sang she.

Daft Jean,

The waesome wean,

She gaed na' to cottage, she gaed na' to ha',

But forth she creepit,

While a' the house weepit,

Into the snaw i' the eerie night-fa'.

At morn we found her,

The lammies stood round her,

The snaw was her pillow, her sheet was the snaw;

Pale she was lying,

Singing and dying,

A' for the laddie who fell far awa'.

"White, white," sang she,

'My love has married me,

White, white my weeds shall be,

White, white my wedding shall be,
White, white!" sang she.

SYDNEY DOBELL

XVI

EDITH AND HAROLD

I KNOW it will not ease the smart ;
I know it will increase the pain;
'Tis torture to a wounded heart;
Yet, oh! to see him once again.