The morn wind is sweet 'mang the beds o' new flowers,
The wee birds sing kindlie an' hie,

Our gude-man leans owre his kale-yard dyke,

An' a blithe auld bodie is he,

The Beuk maun be ta'en when the carle comes hame,
Wi' the holie psalmodie,

And thou maun speak o' me to thy God,

And I will speak o' thee!

This exquisite mixture of love, and reverence to God, is hardly paralleled in the annals of song. It is warmly touched with the holy breath of love, and yet might well beseem the devotional lips of the old man who sang it. It seems to have been written in those fluctuating times, when the hands which were taking the Beuk would have been reeking with blood; when the field of deadly strife became in a few minutes the consecrated ground of religious devotion. In those times love was tempered with religion, and this song is a fine example of devotion chastening the passion of love, so as not to extinguish, but to refine it to a purer flame. When the turbulence of war had subsided there was time for appreciating the blessings of repose, and for composing songs glowing with rural imagery, and ripe with rural sentiment. To such times this song evidently belongs.

Our next selection is a ballad founded on the following fact. A young gentleman of the Maxwell family, from his adherance to the Chevalier Charles Stuart, suffered in the general calamity of his friends. After seeing his paternal mansion reduced to ashes; his father killed in its defence; his only sister dying of grief for her father, and three brothers slain,--he assumed the habit of a shepherd and, in an excursion, singled out one of the individuals who had ruined the hopes of his family. After upbraiding him for his cruelty he slew him in single combat.

THE YOUNG MAXWELL.

"Where gang ye, thou silly auld carle ?
And what do ye carry there?"

"I'm gaun to the hill-side, thou sodger gentleman,
To shift my sheep their lair."

Ae stride or twa took the silly auld carle,

An' a gude lang stride took he;

"I trow thou be a feck auld carle,
Will ye shaw the way to me?"
4

VOL. II.--No. 2.

An' he has gane wi' the silly auld carle,
Adown by the green-wood side:

"Light down, an' gang, thou sodger gentleman,
For here ye canna ride."

He drew the reins o' his bonnie gray steed,

An' lightly down he sprang:

Of the comeliest scarlet was his weir coat,
Whare the gowden tassels hang.

He has thrown aff his plaid, the silly auld carle,
An' his bonnet frae 'boon his bree;
An' wha was it but the young Maxwell!
An' his gude brawn sword drew he!

"Thou kill'd my father, thou vile Southron,
An' ye kill'd my brethren three,
Whilk brake the heart o' my ae sister,
I lov'd as the light o' my ee!

Draw out yere sword thou vile Southron!
Red wat wi' blude o' my kin!

That sword it crapp'd the bonniest flower
E'er lifted its head to the sun!

There's ae sad stroke for my dear auld father!
Twa for my brethren three!

An' there's ane to thy heart for my ae sister,
Wham I lov'd as the light o' my ee!"

The strength of character in this ballad is only equalled by the ensuing story.

In the Scottish Rebellion of 1745, a party of Cumberland's dragoons was hurrying through Nithsdale in search of rebels.Hungry and fatigued they called at a lone widow's house, and demanded refreshment. Her son, a lad of sixteen, dressed them lang kale and butter, and the woman brought new milk, which she told them was all her stock. One of the party enquired how she lived. "Indeed," said she, "the cow and the kale-yard, wi' God's blessing 's a' my mailen." He arose, and with his sabre killed the cow and destroyed all the kale. The poor woman was thrown upon the world and died of a broken heart her son wandered away, beyond the inquiry of friends, or the search of compassion. In the Continental war, some years after, when the British army had gained a signal victory, the soldiers were making merry with wine, and recounting their exploits. A dragoon roared out-"I once starved a Scotch witch in Nithsdale-I killed her cow and destroyed her greens,

but she could live, for all that, on her God, as she said!" "And don't you rue it?" cried a young soldier, starting up. "Rue what?" said he, "rue aught like that!" "Then, by my God," cried the youth, unsheathing his sword, "that woman was my mother! draw, you brutal villain, draw." They fought; the youth passed his blade twice through the dragoon's body, and, while he turned him over in the throes of death, exclaimed, "Had you rued it, you should have only been punished by your God!"

THE ANCIENT PALMER.

Among the people of the Caravan was a venerable man, distinguished by his plaited hair, to the only remaining hoary lock of which he had woven tresses gathered from his friends, and thus formed a turban, which he wore in memory of the absent or the dead.

D'Israeli.

Oh! is this all? hath man no worthier hold
On the deep feelings of his kindred race,
That memory lingers in a turban's fold,

And Age reveres young pleasure's faintest trace?
Must the warm heart forget its early fires;
Save from the urn it catch awakening light?
-Alas! Time blots what soaring Hope inspires
And Sorrow veils Love's radiant heaven in night!

Not long the soul retains its holiest rays,

Caught from the shrine where seraph-spirits breathe ;
Transient and dark are all our mortal days,-
E'en at our birth we feel almighty death!
Yet, like a dream as human being is,
Oblivion shadows memory's fading eye,

And those, who were our nature's purest bliss,
Are all forgotten 'neath the unchanging sky.

The sun of genius sinks in endless gloom,
The bloom of beauty and the pomp of power;
E'en virtue sleeps forgotten in the tomb-
None can avert the unacquainted hour!
Howe'er thy spirit, lonely Son of Song!
Burn with etherial fire and light the sky,
Thy thoughts will perish in the dust erelong,
Or glimmer but to show the blind worm's revelry;

Yet, oh! 'tis sweet, however done, to wake
Long buried feelings into life again,
And from the altar of the heart to take
The living fire that hallows human pain,

And, by its light, through being's midnight maze,
With solemn mind, to search out all the past,
And grieve o'er sin and error's guileful ways,
And dew with tears affliction's burning waste!

The poorest relic of the lost becomes
Holy unto the heart bereav'd of all;
It brings each image from the vale of tombs,
Or wakens life beneath the deep dark pall;
For, whate'er love in sorrow hallows, time,
With all its glories, could not charm away;
Gifts from the dead excite to hopcs sublime-
The noontide glory of Hope's long bright day!

The heart, accorded by the Hand Divine,
Craves something here to love, that it may lean,
In joy and sorrow, on a friend and twine
To holy hopes and shrinking fears between
The tender life-chords of another's heart;
And death, oft merciful in matchless power,
Extends a blessing on his pointed dart,
And leaves an image in the lost one's bower.

E'en that cold shadowy tyrant of the tomb
With hollow eye beholds the heart of man,
And a voice utters, through sepulchral gloom,
"Pause in thy peril! and beware the ban!
Oh! think how soon all earthly things will close!
How frail the strongest of all human ties!
How full of care this world, and thousand woes!
How short, how sure the passage to the tomb!"

Well, Ancient Palmer! didst thou seek to save
The untimely buds, that bloom in memory's bowers,
From the dark mildew of the wintry grave,
And spread soft sun-shine o'er the unfolding flowers!
Though lone and full of grief-thou didst not shun
The full revealment of man's erring mind,-
Thine eye look'd down like autumn's solemn sun-
Thy voice was heard, like harpings of the wind!

Round thee, time-honoured Ruin! many a vine
In all its freshness and its beauty clung,
And in the breeze full many a lengthening line
Of young plants wav'd, on thy green purlieus hung.
Thou stood'st in rugged grandeur there alone,
Midway between the present and the past,
And told of deeds and characters unknown
To all the world-thou Mansion of the Blast!

In all thy wanderings thou didst bear along,
O Ancient Palmer! folded round thy brow,
Names never nam'd in oral tale or song,

Save when from thee their varied histories flow!
Thou, hoary chronicler ! canst tell a tale

Of each particular lock that crowns thy head,

Why one did prosper and another fail

Who dwells on earth-who slumbers with the deal.

And oft, amid the long, long desert plain
Of solitary Basea thou hast stood,

When midnight frown'd in lone meridian reign
O'er nature's dim and awful solitude,

And figures wild and shapes grotesque of Turk,
Arab, Greek, Persian flitted round the fire,
Like elves and fairies-wizard's magic work,
Or thy creations--Genius of the Lyre!

There thou hast stood in that romantic light,
Like some old prophet in the Delphian wood,
And told thy magic tales, while eyes gleam'd bright
Around thee, like thick star-beams on the flood,
While from thy inmost heart in torrents gush'd
The deep pent stream of long collected thought.—
Electric silence on wan brows sat hush'd,
And rapture quiver'd o'er what terror wrought.

The maniac lover, reverenc'd as a god,
The warrior, slain in battle's lightning shock,
The poet, raised to Indra's bright abode,
And the meek shepherd of the wandering flock-
-All from thy lips receiv'd appointed praise,
As thou unfoldedst memory's scroll to view,
And spake the story of their mortal days
In words that glow'd like morning's rosy dew.

-Thou wentest on thy way, rever'd and lov'd,
O Ancient Palmer! and thy wealth was great,-
For thou hadst minds for gems, refin'd and prov'd,
And lore, worth worlds of gold, of time and fate.
-Like thee, may I within my spirit shrine
Whate'er of virtue I may meet below,
That I, in age, may feel my heart, like thine,
Rich with the treasures love and truth bestow!

S. L. F.