My daughter now hath fifteen years, fame speaks her And many a fine flower shall she pluck for my boy." sweet and fair,

I give her for the bride you lose, and name her for "O, father, my father, and did you not hear my heir.

XLIII.

"The young bridegroom hath youthful bride, the old bridegroom the old,

The Erl-King whisper so low in my ear?"-
"Be still, my heart's darling-my child, be at ease;
It was but the wild blast as it sung thro' the trees."

Erl-King.

Whose faith was kept till term and tide so punctually "O wilt thou go with me, thou loveliest boy?
were told;
My daughter shall tend thee with care and with joy;
But blessings on the warder kind that oped my She shall bear thee so lightly thro' wet and thro' wild,

Lyrical and Miscellaneous Pieces.

IN THE ORDER OF THEIR COMPOSITION OR PUBLICATION.

Jubenile Lines.

FROM VIRGIL.

1782. ÆTAT. 11.

"SCOTT's autobiography tells us that his translations n verse from Horace and Virgil were often approved by Dr. Adams, [Rector of the High School, Edinburgh.] One of these little pieces, written in a weak boyish scrawl, within pencilled marks still visible, had been carefully preserved by his mother; it was found folded up in a cover, inscribed by the old lady "My Walter's first lines, 1782."-LOCKHART, Life of Scott, vol. i., p. 129.

In awful ruins Ætna thunders nigh,
And sends in pitchy whirlwinds to the sky
Black clouds of smoke, which, still as they aspire,
From their dark sides there bursts the glowing fire;
At other times huge balls of fire are toss'd,
That lick the stars, and in the smoke are lost :
Sometimes the mount, with vast convulsions torn,
Emits huge rocks, which instantly are borne
With loud explosions to the starry skies,
The stones made liquid as the huge mass flies,
Then back again with greater weight recoils,
While Etna thundering from the bottom boils.

in the shape of an apothecary's blue-buskined wife, &c. &c. These lines, and another short piece' On the Setting Sun,' were lately found wrapped up in a cover, inscribed by Dr. Adam, Walter Scott, July 1783.'"

Loud o'er my head though awful thunders roll,
And vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Yet 'tis thy voice, my God, that bids them fly,
Thy arm directs those lightnings through the sky.
Then let the good thy mighty name revere,
And harden'd sinners thy just vengeance fear.

On the Setting Sun.

1783.

THOSE evening clouds, that setting ray,
And beauteous tints, serve to display

Their great Creator's praise;
Then let the short-lived thing call'd man,
Whose life's comprised within a span,

To him his homage raise.

We often praise the evening clouds,
And tints so gay and bold,
But seldom think upon our God,
Who tinged these clouds with gold!1

to an original effusion of these schoolboy days,'

prompted by a thunder-storm, which he says was

The Violet.

1797.

It appears from the Life of Scott, vol. i., p. 333, that much approved of, until a malevolent critic sprung up these lines, first published in the English Minstrelsy,

"It must, I think, be allowed that these lines, though of the class to which the poet himself modestly ascribes them, and not to be compared with the efforts of Pope, still less of

Cowley at the same period, show, nevertheless, praiseworthy dexterity for a boy of twelve."-Life of Scott, vol. i., p. 131.