And then I heard it gliding past
The couch on which I lay!

I raised my head, and wildly gazed
Into the glimmering gloom;
But nothing save the embers red,
That on the spacious hearth were spread,
I saw within that room.

And all was dusky round,

Save where these embers shed A pale and sickly gleam of light On the Lady Margaret's bed. On the couch where I did lye That sickly light did shine

With one bright flash, when, as a voice
Did cry-"Revenge is mine!"
Another answered straight,

And said, "The hour is come!"
I listened-but these voices twain
For evermore were dumb.

But again the still soft foot

Came creeping stealthy on ;

And then, Oh God! mine ear upcaught A deep and stifled groan.

It echoed through the lofty room

So loud, so clear, and shrill, Methinks even to my dying-day I'll hear that echo still.

Again that deep and smothered groanThat rattle in the throat—

That awful sob of struggling life

On my strained ear-strings smote.

In desperate fear I madly strove
To start from that witch'd bed,

But on my breast there seem'd up-piled
A mountain weight of lead.

And when I strove to speak aloud,

To dissipate that spell,

I shuddered at the shapeless sounds
That from mine own lips fell.
'Twas then, full filled with fear, I shut
Mine eyes t' escape the gaze

Of that dim chamber's arras'd walls,
With their tales of other days,

Lest ghastly shapes should start from them
To sport in horrid glee

Before my tortured sight—dark scenes

Of their life's tragedy,

And like exulting fiends proclaim

How black man's heart can be.

But visionless scant space I lay

With throbbing downshut lid,

When o'er my brow and cheek, dear Lord!

A clammy coldness slid.

O'er brow and cheek I felt it slide;

And, like a frozen rill,

The blood waxed thick within my veins,

Grew pulseless, and stood still.

O'er brow and cheek I felt it slide,

So clammy and so cold,

Like the touch of one whose lifeless limbs
In winding-sheet are rolled.

Straight upward did I look, and then

From the thick obscurity

Oh, horrible! there downward gleamed
Two glittering eyes on me.
From the ceiling of that lofty room

These glittering eyes did stare;

They rested on me, under them,
With a fixed and fearful glare.
Oh, never human eyes did flash
So wild and strange a light,

As these twin eyes straight downward poured
On that unhappy night.

Their beams shot down like lances long,
Unutterably bright.

And still these glittering living lights

Did steadfast gaze on me;

And each fibre of my heart shrunk up

Beneath their sorcery.

Still, still they gleam-their searching glance brain.

Has pierced into my

I feel the stream of fire pass through,

I feel its cureless pain!

One moment seemed to pass, and then
My vision waxed more clear
And livelier to my spell-fraught sight,
These blazing eyes appear.
As with unholy light they lit
A pallid cheek and brow,
And quivered on a lip as cold

And blenched as driven snow.
And I did gaze on that pale brow,
And on that lovesome cheek;
I watched those cold part-opened lips,
Methought that they would speak
But motionless, and void of life
As monumental stone,

Was every feature, save those eyes,

That evermore out shone

With a fearful lustre, that to life

On earth, is never known. That face was all a deadly white,

Yet beautiful to see;

And indistinctly floated down

Its body's symmetry,

In ample folds and wimples quain

Of gorgeous drapery.

And gleaming forth, like spots of

On a sad coloured field,

A small white hand on either side

Was partially revealed.
O'er me a deeper horror,

A marvellous rush of light—
Long-perished memories returned
Upon that dreadful night.

I heard the voice of other times,
The tale of other years,
Re-acted were their direst crimes,
Re-shed their bitterest tears!

LXXIV.

CRUXTOUN CASTLE.

Of the

The reader will find a brief, but instructive, account of this relic of Baronial times-which, at different periods, has been written Cruxtoun, Crocstoun, and Crookston-in a work entitled, "Views in Renfrewshire," by Philip A. Ramsay, one of the Poet's earliest and truest friends. objects of antiquity remaining in Renfrewshire, Cruxtoun Castle, according to Mr. Ramsay, is, in point of interest, second only to the Abbey of Paisley. "The ruins of this castle," he observes, " occupy the summit of a wooded slope, overhanging the south bank of the White Cart, about three miles south-east from Paisley, and close to the spot where that river receives the waters of a stream called the Levern. The scenery in this neighbourhood is rich and varied, and although the eminence on which the Castle stands is but gentle, it is so commanding that our great Novelist has made Queen Mary remark, that "from thence you may see a prospect wide as from the peaks of Schehallion." To Cruxtoun Castle, then the property of Darnley, Mary's husband, tradition tells us, the royal bride was conducted, soon after the celebration of their nuptials at Edinburgh."

THOU grey and antique tower,

Receive a wanderer of the lonely night,
Whose moodful sprite

Rejoices at this witching time to brood

Amid thy shattered strength's dim solitude!

It is a fear-fraught hour

A death-like stillness reigns around,

Save the wood-skirted river's eerie sound,

And the faint rustling of the trees that shower
Their brown leaves on the stream,

Mournfully gleaming in the moon's pale beam :
O! I could dwell for ever and for ever

In such a place as this, with such a night!
When, o'er thy waters and thy waving woods
The moon-beams sympathetically quiver,
And no ungentle thing on thee intrudes,

And every voice is dumb, and every object bright!

Forgive, old Cruxtoun, if, with step unholy,
Unwittingly a pilgrim should profane
The regal quiet, the august repose,
Which o'er thy desolated summit reign—
When the fair moon's abroad, at evening's close-
Or interrupt that touching melancholy-
Image of fallen grandeur—softly thrown
O'er every crumbling and moss-bedded stone,
And broken arch, and pointed turret hoar,
Which speak a tale of times that are no more;
Of triumphs they have seen,

When Minstrel-craft, in praise of Scotland's Queen,
Woke all the magic of the harp and song,

And the rich, varied, and fantastic lore
Of those romantic days was carped, I ween,
Amidst the pillared pomp of lofty hall,
By many a jewelled throng

Of smiling dames and soldier barons bold;
When the loud cheer of generous wassail rolled
From the high deis to where the warder strode,
Proudly, along the battlemented wall,
Beneath his polished armour's ponderous load;
Who paused to hear, and carolled back again,
With martial glee, the jocund vesper strain :

X