"My sand is run; my thread is spun; This sign regardeth me."

The elfin harp his neck around,
In minstrel guise, he hung;
And on the wind, in doleful sound,
Its dying accents rung.

Then forth he went; yet turned him oft
To view his ancient hall;

On the grey tower, in lustre soft,
The autumn moonbeams fall.

And Leader's waves, like silver sheen,
Danced shimmering in the ray:
In deepening mass, at distance seen,
Broad Soltra's mountains lay.

"Farewell, my father's ancient tower! A long farewell," said he :

66

The scene of pleasure, pomp, or power,
Thou never more shalt be.

66

"To Learmont's name no foot of earth
Shall here again belong,

And on thy hospitable hearth
The hare shall leave her young.
"Adieu! Adieu!" again he cried,
All as he turned him roun'-
"Farewell to Leader's silver tide!
Farewell to Ercildoune!"

The hart and hind approached the place,
As lingering yet he stood;

And there, before Lord Douglas' face,
With them he crossed the flood.

Lord Douglas leaped on his berry-brown steed, And spurred him the Leader o'er;

But, though he rode with lightning speed,
He never saw them more.

Some said to hill, and some to glen,

Their wondrous course had been; But ne'er in haunts of living men

Again was Thomas seen.

WAR SONG

OF THE ROYAL EDINBURGH LIGHT DRAGOONS.

THE following War-song was written during the apprehension of an invasion. The corps of volunteers, to which it was addressed, was raised in 1797, consisting of gentlemen, mounted and armed at their own expense. It still subsists, as the Right Troop of the Royal Mid-Lothian Light Cavalry, commanded by the Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel Dundas. The noble and constitutional measure of arming freemen in defence of their own rights, was nowhere more successful than in Edinburgh, which furnished a force of 3,000 armed and disciplined volunteers, including a regiment of cavalry, from the city and county, and two corps of artillery, each capable of serving twelve guns. To such a force, above all others, might, in similar circumstances, be applied the exhortation of our ancient Galgacus: "Proinde ituri in aciem, et majores vestros et posteros cogitate."

To horse! to horse! the standard flies,
The bugles sound the call;

The Gallic navy stems the seas,
The voice of battle's on the breeze,―
Arouse ye, one and all!

From high Dunedin's towers we come,
A band of brothers true;

Our casques the leopard's spoils surround,
With Scotland's hardy thistle crowned;
We boast the red and blue."

Though tamely crouch to Gallia's frown
Dull Holland's tardy train;

Their ravished toys though Romans mourn,
Though gallant Switzers vainly spurn,
And, foaming, gnaw the chain;

O! had they marked the avenging call
Their brethren's murder gave,
Disunion ne'er their ranks had mown,
Nor patriot valour, desperate grown,
Sought freedom in the grave!

The Royal colours.

a The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss guards, on the fatal 10th of August, 1792. It is painful, but not useless, to remark, that the passive temper with which the Swiss regarded the death of their bravest countrymen, mercilessly slaughtered in discharge of their duty, encouraged and authorized the progressive injustice by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people on the Continent, were, at length, converted into the citadel of a foreign and military despot. A state degraded is half enslaved.

Shall we, too, bend the stubborn head,
In Freedom's temple born,
Dress our pale cheek in timid smile,
To hail a master in our isle,

Or brook a victor's scorn?

No! though destruction o'er the land
Come pouring as a flood,
The sun, that sees our falling day,
Shall mark our sabres' deadly sway,
And set that night in blood.

For gold let Gallia's legions fight,
Or plunder's bloody gain;

Unbribed, unbought, our swords we draw,
To guard our King, to fence our Law,
Nor shall their edge be vain.

If ever breath of British gale
Shall fan the tricolor,

Or footstep of invader rude,
With rapine foul, and red with blood,
Pollute our happy shore,-

Then farewell home! and farewell friends!
Adieu each tender tie!
Resolved, we mingle in the tide,
Where charging squadrons furious ride,
To conquer, or to die.

To horse! to horse! the sabres gleam;
High sounds our bugle call;
Combined by honour's sacred tie;
Our word is Laws and Liberty!
March forward, one and all!

Translations and Imitations of German Ballads.

THE CHASE.

[This and the following ballad were first published anonymously in a small book, entitled, "The Chase and William and Helen;" two ballads, from the German of Gottfried Augustus Bürger. Edinburgh: Printed by Mundell and Son, Bank-close, for Manners and Miller, Parliament-square; and sold by T. Cadell, jun., and W. Davies, in the Strand, London. 1796. 4to. It goes generally by the title, "The Wild Huntsman."]

THIS is a translation, or rather an imitation, of the "Wilde Jäger" of the German poet Bürger. The tradition upon which it is founded bears, that formerly a Wildgrave, or keeper of a royal forest, named Falkenburg, was so much addicted to the pleasures of the chase, and otherwise so extremely profligate and cruel, that he not only followed this unhallowed amusement on the Sabbath, and other days consecrated to religious duty, but accompanied it with the most unheard-of oppression upon the poor peasants who were under his vassalage. When this second Nimrod died, the people adopted a superstition, founded probably on the many various uncouth sounds heard in the depth of a German forest, during the silence of the night. They conceived they still heard the cry of the Wildgrave's hounds; and the wellknown cheer of the deceased hunter, the sounds of his horse's feet, and the rustling of the branches before the game, the pack, and the sportsmen, are also distinctly discriminated; but the phantoms are rarely, if ever, visible. Once, as a benighted Chasseur heard this infernal chase pass by him, at the sound of the halloo, with which the Spectre Huntsman cheered his hounds, he could not refrain from crying, “ Glück zu Falkenburg!" [Good sport to ye, Falkenburg!] 'Dost thou wish me good sport ?" answered a hoarse voice; "thou shalt share the game;" and there was thrown at him what seemed to be a huge piece of foul carrion. The daring Chasseur lost two of his best horses soon after, and never perfectly recovered the personal effects of this ghostly greeting. This tale, though told with some variations, is universally believed all over Germany.

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The French had a similar tradition concerning an aërial hunter, who infested the forest of Fountainebleau.

I

THE Wildgrave winds his bugle horn,
To horse, to horse! halloo, halloo !
His fiery courser snuffs the morn,
And thronging serfs their lords pursue.

II

The eager pack, from couples freed,

Dash through the bush, the brier, the brake;
While, answering hound, and horn, and steed,
The mountain echoes startling wake.

III

The beams of God's own hallowed day
Had painted yonder spire with gold,
And, calling sinful man to pray,

Loud, long, and deep, the bell had tolled:

IV

But still the Wildgrave onward rides;
Halloo, halloo! and, hark again!
When, spurring from opposing sides,
Two Stranger Horsemen join the train.

V

Who was each Stranger, left and right,
Well may I guess, but dare not tell;
The right-hand steed was silver white,
The left, the swarthy hue of hell.

VI

The right-hand horseman, young and fair,
His smile was like the morn of May;
The left, from eye of tawny glare,

Shot midnight lightning's lurid ray.

VII

He waved his huntsman's cap on high,
Cried, "Welcome, welcome, noble lord!
What sport can earth, or sea, or sky,

To match the princely chase afford ?"—

VIII

"Cease thy loud bugle's clanging knell,"
Cried the fair youth with silver voice;
"And for Devotion's choral swell,
Exchange the rude unhallowed noise.

IX

To-day, the ill-omened chase forbear,
Yon bell yet summons to the fane;
To-day the Warning Spirit hear,

To-morrow thou mayst mourn in vain."

In the First Edition "Earl Walter" is the term applied throughout the ballad, instead of "the Wildgrave."