Unflaw'd and stainless be the marble scroll,
Emblem of lovely form and candid soul.—
But, oh! what symbol may avail, to tell
The kindness, wit, and sense, we loved so well!
What sculpture show the broken ties of life,
Here buried with the parent, friend, and wife!
Or on the tablet stamp each title dear,
By which thine urn, EUPHEMIA, claims the tear!
Yet taught, by thy meek sufferance, to assume
Patience in anguish, hope beyond the tomb,
Resign'd, though sad, this votive verse shall flow,
And brief, alas! as thy brief span below.

From the Monastery.

1820.

(1.) SONGS OF THE WHITE LADY OF AVENEL.

(8.)-CHAP. XXXVII.

Anonymous.

Say not my art is fraud-all live by seeming.
The beggar begs with it, and the gay courtier
Gains land and title, rank and rule, by seeming:
The clergy scorn it not, and the bold soldier
Will eke with it his service.-All admit it,
All practise it; and he who is content
With showing what he is, shall have small credit
In church, or camp, or state.-So wags the world.
Old Play.

(9.)-CHAP. XXXVIII.
Stern was the law which bade its vot'ries leave
At human woes with human hearts to grieve;
Stern was the law, which at the winning wile
Of frank and harmless mirth forebade to smile;
But sterner still, when high the iron-rod

Of tyrant power she shook, and call'd that power of God.

The Middle Ages.

Epitaph on Mrs. Erskine.1

1819.

PLAIN, as her native dignity of mind, Arise the tomb of her we have resign'd;

1 Mrs. Euphemia Robison, wife of William Erskine, Esq. (afterwards Lord Kinedder,) died September, 1819, and was

ON TWEED RIVER.

1.

MERRILY Swim we, the moon shines bright,
Both current and ripple are dancing in light.
We have roused the night raven, I heard him croak,
As we plashed along beneath the oak

That flings its broad branches so far and so wide,
Their shadows are dancing in midst of the tide.
"Who wakens my nestlings?" the raven he said,
"My beak shall ere morn in his blood be red!
For a blue swollen corpse is a dainty meal,
And I'll have my share with the pike and the eel.”

2.

Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
There's a golden gleam on the distant height:
There's a silver shower on the alders dank,
And the drooping willows that wave on the bank.

1 see the Abbey, both turret and tower,

It is all astir for the vesper hour;

The Monks for the chapel are leaving each cell, But where 's Father Philip should toll the bell?

3.

Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
Downward we drift through shadow and light.
Under yon rock the eddies sleep,
Calm and silent, dark and deep.

The Kelpy has risen from the fathomless pool,
He has lighted his candle of death and of dool:
Look, Father, look, and you'll laugh to see
How he gapes and glares with his eyes on thee!

buried at Saline, in the county of Fife, where these lines are inscribed on the tombstone.

TO HALBERT.

YOUTH of the dark eye, wherefore didst thou call me ! Wherefore art thou here, if terrors can appal thee? He that seeks to deal with us must know nor fear, nor failing;

To coward and churl our speech is dark, our gifts are unavailing.

The breeze that brought me hither now must sweep Egyptian ground,

The fleecy cloud on which I ride for Araby is bound; The fleecy cloud is drifting by, the breeze sighs for my

stay,

For I must sail a thousand miles before the close of day.

What I am I must not show-
What I am thou couldst not know-
Something betwixt heaven and hell-
Something that neither stood nor fell-
Something that through thy wit or will
May work thee good-may work thee ill.
Neither substance quite, nor shadow,
Haunting lonely moor and meadow,
Dancing by the haunted spring,
Riding on the whirlwind's wing;
Aping in fantastic fashion

Every change of human passion,
While o'er our frozen minds they pass,
Like shadows from the mirror'd glass.
Wayward, fickle, is our mood,
Hovering betwixt bad and good,
Happier than brief-dated man,
Living ten times o'er his span;
Far less happy, for we have
Help nor hope beyond the grave!

1 Sackless-Innocent.

Though I am form'd from the ether blue,
And my blood is of the unfallen dew,
And thou art framed of mud and dust,
"Tis thine to speak, reply I must.

A mightier wizard far than I
Wields o'er the universe his power:
Him owns the eagle in the sky,
The turtle in the bower.

Changeful in shape, yet mightiest still,
He wields the heart of man at will,
From ill to good, from good to ill,
In cot and castle-tower.

Ask thy heart, whose secret cell
Is fill'd with Mary Avenel !
Ask thy pride, why scornful look
In Mary's view it will not brook?
Ask it, why thou seek'st to rise
Among the mighty and the wise,-
Why thou spurn'st thy lowly lot,—
Why thy pastimes are forgot,-
Why thou wouldst in bloody strife
Mend thy luck or lose thy life?
Ask thy heart, and it shall tell,
Sighing from its secret cell,
"Tis for Mary Avenel.

Do not ask me;

On doubts like these thou canst not task me.
We only see the passing show

Of human passions' ebb and flow;
And view the pageant's idle glance
As mortals eye the northern dance,
When thousand streamers, flashing bright,
Career it o'er the brow of night,

And gazers mark their changeful gleams,
But feel no influence from their beams.

By ties mysterious link'd, our fated race
Holds strange connection with the sons of men.
The star that rose upon the House of Avenel,
When Norman Ulric first assumed the name,
That star, when culminating in its orbit,
Shot from its sphere a drop of diamond dew,
And this bright font received it—and a Spirit
Rose from the fountain, and her date of life
Hath co-existence with the House of Avenel
And with the star that rules it.

Look on my girdle-on this thread of gold-
"Tis fine as web of lightest gossamer,
And, but there is a spell on't, would not bind,
Light as they are, the folds of my thin robe.
But when 'twas donn'd, it was a massive chain,
Such as might bind the champion of the Jews,
Even when his locks were longest-it hath dwindled,
Hath 'minish'd in its substance and its strength,
As sunk the greatness of the House of Avenel.
When this frail thread gives way, I to the elements

THE WHITE LADY TO MARY AVENEL. MAIDEN, whose sorrows wail the Living Dead, Whose eyes shall commune with the Dead Alive, Maiden, attend! Beneath my foot lies hid

The Word, the Law, the Path which thou dost strive To find, and canst not find.--Could Spirits shed Tears for their lot, it were my lot to weep, Showing the road which I shall never tread, Though my foot points it.-Sleep, eternal sleep, Dark, long, and cold forgetfulness my lot!— But do not thou at human ills repine; Secure there lies full guerdon in this spot

For all the woes that wait frail Adam's lineStoop then and make it your's,-1 may not make it mine!

Chap. xxx.

THE WHITE LADY TO EDWARD GLENDINNING.

THOU who seek'st my fountain lone,
With thoughts and hopes thou dar❜st not own;
Whose heart within leap'd wildly glad,
When most his brow seem'd dark and sad;
Hie thee back, thou find'st not here
Corpse or coffin, grave or bier;
The Dead Alive is gone and fled-
Go thou, and join the Living Dead!

The Living Dead, whose sober brow
Oft shrouds such thoughts as thou hast now,
Whose hearts within are seldom cured
Of passions by their vows abjured;