THE PALMER.

O OPEN the door, some pity to show;
Keen blows the northern wind,

The glen is white with the drifted snow;
And the path is hard to find.

"No Outlaw seeks your castle-gate, From chasing the king's deer, Though even an Outlaw's wretched state

Might claim compassion here.

"A weary Palmer, worn and weak,
I wander for my sin;

O open, for your lady's sake,
A pilgrim's blessing win!

"I'll give you pardons from the pope,
And reliques from o'er the sea,-
O, if for these you will not ope,
Yet open for charity.

"The hare is crouching in her form,
The hart beside the hind;

An aged man, amid the storm,
No shelter can I find.

"You hear the Ettricke's sullen roar,

Dark, deep, and strong is he,

And I must ford the Ettricke o'er,
Unless you pity me.

"The iron gate is bolted hard,

At which I knock in vain;
The owner's heart is closer barred,
Who hears me thus complain.

"Farewell, farewell! and Mary grant,
When old and frail you be,
You never may the shelter want,
That's now denied to me."

The Ranger on his couch lay warm,
And heard him plead in vain;

But oft amid December's storm,
He'll hear that voice again.

For lo, when, through the vapours dank,
Morn shone on Ettricke fair,

A corpse amid the alders rank,
The Palmer weltered there.

WANDERING WILLIE.

ALL joy was bereft me the day that you left me,
And climbed the tall vessel to sail yon wide sea;
O weary betide it! I wandered beside it,

And banned it for parting my Willie and me.
Far o'er the wave hast thou followed thy fortune;
Oft fought the squadrons of France and of Spain;
Ae kiss of welcome worth twenty at parting,

Now I hae gotten my Willie again.

When the sky it was mirk, and the winds they were wailing,

I sate on the beach wi' the tear in my e'e,

And thought o' the bark where my Willie was sailing,
And wished that the tempest could a' blaw on me.

Now that thy gallant ship rides at her mooring,
Now that my wanderer's in safety at hame,
Music to me were the wildest winds roaring,

That ere o'er Inch Keith drove the dark ocean faem.

When the lights they did blaze, and the guns they did rattle,

And blithe was each heart for the great victory,

In secret I wept for the dangers of battle,

And thy glory itself was scarce comfort to me.

But now shalt thou tell, while I eagerly listen,
Of each bold adventure, of every brave scar:

And, trust me, I'll smile, though my e'en they may glisten;
For sweet after danger 's the tale of the war.

And oh how we doubt when there's distance 'tween lovers, When there's naething to speak to the heart through the e'e;

How often the kindest and warmest prove rovers,

And the love of the faithfullest ebbs like the sea.

Till, at times, could I help it? I pined and I pondered, If love would change notes like the bird on the treeNow I'll ne'er ask if thine eyes may hae wandered, Enough, thy leal heart has been constant to me. Welcome, from sweeping o'er sea and through channel, Hardships and danger despising for fame,

Furnishing story for glory's bright annal,

Welcome, my wanderer, to Jeanie and hame.

Enough now thy story in annals of glory

Has humbled the pride of France, Holland, and Spain; No more shalt thou grieve me, no more shalt thou leave me, I never will part with my Willie again.

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

THERE is a tradition in Tweeddale, that, when Neidpath Castle, near Peebles, was inhabited by the Earls of March, a mutual passion subsisted between a daughter of that noble family and a son of the laird of Tushielaw, in Ettricke Forest. As the alliance was thought unsuitable by her parents, the young man went abroad. During his absence, the lady fell in a consumption; and at length, as the only means of saving her life, her father consented that her lover should be recalled. On the day when he was expected to pass through Peebles, on the road to Tushielaw, the young lady, though much exhausted, caused herself to be carried to the balcony of a house in Peebles, belonging to the family, that she might see him as he rode past. Her anxiety and eagerness gave such force to her organs, that she is said to have distinguished his horse's footsteps at an incredible distance. But Tushielaw, unprepared for the change in her appearance, and not expecting to see her in that place, rode on, without recognizing her, or even slackening his pace. The lady was unable to support the shock, and, after a short struggle, died in the arms of her attendants. There is an incident similar to this traditional tale in Count Hamilton's "Fleur d'Epine."

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 pricked his ear,
She heard her lover's riding;

Ere scarce a distant form was kenned,
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-a 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.

THE BARD'S INCANTATION.

WRITTEN UNDER THE THREAT OF INVASION, IN

AUTUMN OF 1804.

Published in the Edinburgh Annual Register, 1808.
THE Forest of Glenmore is drear,

It is all of black pine, and the dark oak-tree;
And the midnight wind, to the mountain deer,
Is whistling the forest lullaby :-

The moon looks through the drifting storm,
But the troubled lake reflects not her form,
For the waves roll whitening to the land,
And dash against the shelvy strand.

There is a voice among the trees

That mingles with the groaning oak

That mingles with the stormy breeze,

And the lake-waves dashing against the rock;

There is a voice within the wood,

The voice of the Bard in fitful mood,

His song was louder than the blast,

THE

As the Bard of Glenmore through the forest passed.
"Wake ye from your sleep of death,
Minstrels and Bards of other days!
For the midnight wind is on the heath,
And the midnight meteors dimly blaze:
The spectre with his bloody hand,b
Is wandering through the wild woodland;
The owl and the raven are mute for dread,
And the time is meet to awake the dead!

"Souls of the mighty! wake and say,

To what high strain your harps were strung,
When Lochlin ploughed her billowy way,
And on your shores her Norsemen flung?
Her Norsemen trained to spoil and blood,"
Skilled to prepare the raven's food,

b The forest of Glenmore is haunted by a spirit called Lhamdearg, Red-hand.

All by your harpings doomed to die
On bloody Largs and Loncarty.c

"Mute are ye all? No murmurs strange
Upon the midnight breeze sail by;
Nor through the pines with whistling change
Mimic the harp's wild harmony!
Mute are ye now?-Ye ne'er were mute,
When Murder with his bloody_foot,
And Rapine with his iron hand,

Were hovering near your mountain strand.

"O yet awake the strain to tell,
By every deed in song enrolled,
By every chief who fought or fell,
For Albion's weal in battle bold;-
From Coilgach,d first who rolled his car,
Through the deep ranks of Roman war,
To him, of veteran memory dear,
Who victor died on Aboukir.

"By all their swords, by all their scars,
By all their names, a mighty spell!
By all their wounds, by all their wars,
Arise, the mighty strain to tell;
For fiercer than fierce Hengist's strain,
More impious than the heathen Dane,
More grasping than all-grasping Rome,
Gaul's ravening legions hither come !"-
The wind is hushed, and still the lake-
Strange murmurs fill my tinkling ears,
Bristles my hair, my sinews quake,

At the dread voice of other years-
"When targets clashed, and bugles rung,
And blades round warriors' heads were flung,
The foremost of the band were we,
And hymned the joys of Liberty!"

TO A LADY.

WITH FLOWERS FROM A ROMAN WALL.

Published in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1808.

TAKE these flowers, which, purple waving,
On the ruined rampart grew,

Where, the sons of freedom braving,
Rome's imperial standards flew.

Where the Norwegian invader of Scotland received two bloody defeats.

d The Galgacus of Tacitus.