30.

"Thou shalt be mine," the generous Minstrel said; "If I had known my love's unhappy state,

Not all the land my presence should have staid!
Thou hast been injured, and my blame is great!
This night the holy Abbot we'll entreat

To join our hands, then art thou doubly mine;
Then hie thee back to Tay, for I must wait
Our Sovereign's will; but do not thou repine,
For all thy native hills, from Tay to Bran, are thine.

31.

"I have some favour with our Monarch's ear,
And he hath kindly granted my request;
If this our son his royal name may bear,

That his shall be an earldom of the best.

I have his signet, and his high behest
To turn the ruthless Albert to the door :

The royal bounds, that border to the west,
He grants thee too-these all are thine secure,
And every dame on Tay shall stoop to Ila Moore.

32.

“Haply to distant land I now may roam,

But next when summer flowers the highland lea, I will return, and seek my woodland home

Within the bowers of sweet Kinnaird with thee. There is a lowly spot beneath the tree, O'ershadow'd by the cliff-thou know'st it well!

In that sweet solitude our cot shall be;

There first we loved, and there in love we'll dwell, And long, long shall it stand, a Minstrel's faith to tell.

33.

"When summer eve hath wove her silken screen, Her fairy net-work of the night and day,

Hath tipt with flame the cone of mountain green, And dipt the red sun in the springs of Tay, How sweet with thee above the cliff to stay, And see the evening stretch her starry zone!

Or, shaded from the sun's meridian ray,

Lie stretch'd upon the lap of greenwood lone! ; O happier shalt thou be for sorrows undergone !"

K

34.

Their hands were join'd—a mother's heart was blest!

Her son was christen'd by his Sovereign's name;

In gold and scarlet the young imp was dress'd,

A tiar on his head of curious frame.

But ne'er on earth was seen a minstrel's dame Shine in such beauty, and such rich array!

An hundred squires, and fifty maidens, came Riding on palfreys, sporting all the way,

To guard this splendid dame home to her native Tay.

35.

Needs not to sing of after joys that fell,

Of years of glory and felicity;

Needs not on time and circumstance to dwell.-
All who have heard of maid of low degree,
Hight Ila Moore, up raised in dignity

And rank all other Scottish dames above,

May well conceive who Mador needs must be,

And trace the winding mysteries of his love.

To such my tale is told, and such will it approve.

6

CONCLUSION.

RETURN, my Harp, unto the Border dale,
Thy native green hill, and thy fairy ring;
No more thy murmurs on the Grampian gale
May wake the hind in covert slumbering,

Nor must thy proud and far outstretched string Presume to renovate the northern song,

Wakening the echoes Ossian taught to sing; Their sleep of ages still they must prolong,

Till son inspired is born their native hills among.

Loved was the voice that woo'd from Yarrow bowers

Thy truant flight to that entrancing clime; She ween'd thy melody and tuneful powers, Mellow'd by custom, and matured by time, Or that the sounds and energies sublime,

That darkly dwell by cataract and steep,
Would rouse anew thy visionary chime,

Too long by southland breezes lull'd asleep.

O may she well approve thy wild and wandering

sweep!

Should her fair hand bestow the earliest bays,
Although proud learning lift the venom❜d eye,
Still shalt thou warble strains of other days,
Struck by some tuneful spirit lingering nigh;
Till those, who long have pass'd derisive by,
Shall list to hear thy tones when newly strung,

And Scottish maidens over thee shall sigh,
When I am all un-named by human tongue,

And thy enchanted chords by other hands are rung!

THE END.

EDINBURGH:

Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.