ting thoughtful in my hall; a lamp burned before me; serene and sultry was the evening; I was oppressed with the heat, though no fire was in the place: My window opened to the twinkling of the stars: The moon threw her borrowed light upon the floor, and gleamed along the side of the glen, reposing her steady beams on the wood, or sparkling in the stream below; the tops of the trees were bright in the wood that rose, and round as her silver edge when she first appears, but the shades were dark as the cave within the hollow rock; she glistened on the dew, in the fullness of her light, marking the distant temple on the brow, and the ruins among the lofty trunks; the withered leaf from above dropt gently through the spreading boughs. Not a cloud could be seen: Only the farthest stars were hid by the rising mist; slow, as the yielding light, they descended behind the steaming plain.— I thought on the Maid of the wood t; how she pined in the artless bower, to the west, and listened to the falling of the stream: I marked the hum of the distant lin, beyond, between the birks in the how t Far beneath the noise of the waters was heard, in

* The ruins of the Chapel. See the Description of New-Hall House.

See the Description of Mary's Lin, and Bower; and the Mansion, the preceding poem.

In Habbie's How.

the howm. The western breeze came skimming down the hill, and gently sighed in passing through the glen; the leaves hardly rustled as it went along. Nocturnal exhalations rose: the merry gleam danced upon the heath: the duský bat fluttered round the trees at dreary intervals, from the dark recess on either side, was heard the moaning of the owl; she sat in the hollow tree, o'er the rill that murmurs from the dashing rock above, to glide down the sloping fall below, and meet the current in the glade *; wild was the screech she returned; her hootings were like those she sends forth before the approaching storm; she answered to another's cry; cold ran the blood of the traveller; the screams floated in the wind, like the lamentations of the dying in the hands of the midnight murderer.The raging bull bellows through the woods: The boar whets his tusks on the aged oak: The howlings of the wolf is heard afar; swift, as the arrow from the hunter's bow, th' affrighted deer fly o'er th' extended heath. But the shrouded ghost, as the shadow of a lingering cloud, stalks slowly o'er the paths of the dead; wan and wrapt in white he had sullen risen from beneath his stone; the turf heaved as he rose :

The "howm," or Washing Green, below the Fairies' Den, and Lin. See the Description of New-Hall House, &c. The "howm" is immediately behind New-Hall House.

The cold wind shrilly whistles among the dropping ailes the blue taper scarcely through the horn shows the relic; half extinguished by the sickly damps, wearisomely it burns; faintly his slow approach is heard through the winding vault; a glimmering light, from the pale moon, steals through the shattered roof, and dimly marks his way: Mournful, he issues from the gate of tears; the drowsy hinges creak Like the pillared smoke ascending before a sable cloud ready to thunder on the earth, tall and white, he walks his round before the gloomy pile; his cold step is on the silent grave; the great bell is heard to toll on high; the hollow sound dully echoes from the awful tower, and slumbers in the breeze: Wild, and dismal is the shriek! from the habitations of the dead. All else was calm and still: Silence reigned: The feathered race were fast asleep.

Faint gleamings, like the transient lights that shoot athwart the heavens, brightened in the south. White, as the sun behind the mist of the morning, a dazzling glare filled the hall; the lamp was lost in the blaze. I ran to the window: The heavens were on fire; I could distinguish the smallest object on the earth : The gleam was extinguished: The stars withdrew their lights: The moon gave up the contest. From the west of south the METEOR approached: Large, and round, it seemed, at first, to stand, like another

moon; but, to her, as white as she appears when, pale behind the beams of the sun, she waiteth for the hour of her strength. Slow, and equal was its pace, forming an easy bend. It flattened as it moved, and dragged a fiery tail; many were the stars it left in its train; a hissing sound was heard as it passed; prodigious was its height, though so bright it seemed at hand. The blinded owl ceased to scream; the silly bat fell stupified to the earth; the feathered race, starting, turned their heads from behind their wings; nature awoke. Soon, it disappeared behind the northern hill: The noise of its bursting was heard, like the sound of distant thunder, beyond the lofty mountain, when the winds are hush, and the bounding roe panteth on the hill.

The moon resumed her reign: The stars put forth their heads: The exhalation kindled on the heath: The owl renewed her note: The bat, shrunk within its wings, rose from the earth, and fluttered in the air: The waters, far below, murmured through the glade The trees rustled to the sighing gale: The feathered race hid their heads behind their wings; Wearied nature slept. The astonished traveller musing went on his way: I returned to my seat.

Quickly the invaders came: Fierce was the foe

from the southern shore. The Valkyriur*, the choosers of the slain, attended on the field: They were mounted on swift horses; their swords were drawn in their hands: They selected such as were destined for slaughter: Many were the heroes they conducted to Valhalla, to attend them at the banquet, and serve them with their horns of mead: The groans of the dying filled the land: He perished at the head of his people. Wide and waste are the forests of the stranger. When shall we see the race of Odin!

THE HARBOUR CRAIG.

"Amazed at antic titles on the stones."

DRYDEN'S Virgil, G. 1.

"An hour after, he saw something to the right which looked at a distance like a castle with towers, but which he discovered afterwards to be a craggy rock."

JOHNSON. Idler, NO. 97.

"At sight of the great church, he owned that indeed it was a lofty rock, but insisted that in his native country of St Kilda there were others still higher; however, the caverns formed in it (so he named the pillars and arches on which it is raised) were hollowed, he said, more commodiously than any he had ever seen there." MALLET, from Martin's Voyage to St Kilda.

See GRAY's Poems, THE FATAL SISTERS, Note.