From Thomas Campbell to Marquis of Lorne

I see nae father's ha',
Nae burnie's waterfa',
But wander far awa'

Frae my ain dear land. My heart was free and light, My ingle burning bright, When ruin cam' by night,

Thro' a foe's fell brand: I left my native air,

I gaed-to come nae mair!And now I sorrow sair

For my ain dear land.

But blythely will I bide,
Whate'er may yet betide,
When ane is by my side

On this far, far strand; My Jean will soon be here, This waefu' heart to cheer, And dry the fa'ing tear For my ain dear land.

THE VOICE OF WOE.

"The language of passion, and more peculiarly that of grief, is ever nearly the same."

An Indian chief went forth to fight,
And bravely met the foe.

His eye was keen-his step was light--
His arm was unsurpassed in might;
But on him fell the gloom of night--
An arrow laid him low.
His widow sang with simple tongue,
When none could hear or see,
Ay, cheray me!

A Moorish maiden knelt beside
Her dying lover's bed;

She bade him stay to bless his bride,
She called him oft her lord, her pride;
But mortals must their doom abide-
The warrior's spirit fled.

With simple tongue the sad one sung,
When none could hear or see,
Ay, di me!

An English matron mourned her son,
The only son she bore;

A far from her his course was run,
He perished as the fight was done,
He perished when the fight was won,
Upon a foreign shore.

With simple tongue the mother sung,
When none could hear or see,

Ah, dear me!

A gentle Highland maiden saw

A brother's body borne

From where, for country, king, and law,
He went his gallant sword to draw;
But swept within destruction's maw
From her had he been torn.
She sat and sung, with simple tongue,
When none could hear or see,

Oh, hon-a-ree!

An infant in untimely hour

Died in a Lowland cot;
The parents own'd the hand of power
That bids the storm be still or lour;
They grieved because the cup was sour,

And yet they murmured not.
They only sung with simple tongue,
When none could hear or see,
Ah, wae's me!

THOMAS T. STODDART.

THOMAS TOD STODDART was born in Argyle | sided. For many years he has devoted himSquare, Edinburgh, February 14, 1810. He self to the pursuits of literature and the is the son of a distinguished rear-admiral of pleasures of good old Walton's favourite rethe British navy, who was present at Lord creation. He was an early and frequent conHowe's victory, at the landing in Egypt, at tributor of poetry to the Edinburgh Literary the battles of the Nile and Copenhagen with Journal. In 1831 he published "The Lunacy Nelson, and in many other encounters. Young or Death-wake; a Necromaunt in Five ChiStoddart was educated at a Moravian establish- meras;" in 1835, "The Art of Angling;" in ment near Manchester, and subsequently passed 1837, "Angling Reminiscences;" in 1839, through a course of philosophy and law in the "Songs and Poems;" in 1846, "Abel MassinUniversity of Edinburgh. At the age of six-ger, or the Aeronaut, a Romance;" in 1847, teen he received a prize in Professor Wilson's class for a poem on "Idolatry." He studied for the bar, and was admitted to practise in 1833; but finding the profession uncongenial, he abandoned it. A few years later he married and settled at Kelso, where he has since re

"The Angler's Companion," a new edition of which was published in 1852; and in 1866, "An Angler's Rambles and Angling Songs. His latest poetical work, entitled "Songs of the Seasons, and other Poems," was issued in

1873.

Like the eye of a sinless child,
That moss-brown tarn is gazing wild

LOCH SKENE.

From its heath-fringe, bright with stars of dew,
Up to the voiceless vault of blue.

It seemeth of a violet tinge,
Shaded under its flowery fringe,

For the dark and purple of moss and heather,
Like night and sunset blend together.

That tarn, it lieth on the hills,

Fed by the thousand infant rills,
Which are ever weeping in very sadness,

Or they smile through their tears with a gleam
of gladness.

You may hear them in a summer's hour,
Trickling, like a rainbow shower,
From yon rock, whose rents of snow
Lie shadow'd in the tarn below.
It looketh from the margin bare,
Like a headstone in a churchyard fair;
But the heavy heron loveth well
Its height, where his own sentinel
He sits, when heaven is almost done
With the slow watch of the sun,
And the quiet day doth fold
His wings in arches of burning gold.

There is a lonesome, aged cairn,
Rising gray through the grass-green fern;

It tells of pale, mysterious bones,
Buried below the crumbling stones;
But the shadow of that pile of slaughter
Lies breasted on the stirless water,
As if no mortal hand had blent
Its old, unearthly lineament.

A wizard tarn is gray Loch Skene!
There are two islands sown within:
Both are like, as like the other
As brother to his own twin-brother;
Only a birch bends o'er the one,
Where the kindred isle hath none,
The tresses of that weeping tree
Hang down in their humility.

"Tis whisper'd of an eyrie there,
Where a lonely eagle pair
In the silver moonlight came,

To feed their young by the holy flame;
And at morn they mounted far and far,
Towards the last surviving star.
Only the forsaken nest

Sighs to the sea-winds from the west,
As if they told in their wandering by
How the rightful lord of its sanctuary
Mourneth his fallen mate alone
On a foamy Atlantic stone.

Never hath the quiet shore
Echoed the fall of silver oar,

Nor the waters of that tarn recoil'd
From the light skiff gliding wild;
But the spiritual cloud that lifted
The quiet moon, and dimly drifted
Away in tracery of snow,
Threw its image on the pool below,
Till it glided to the shaded shore,
Like a bark beneath the moveless oar.

Out at the nethermost brink there gushes A playful stream from its ark of rushes, It leaps like a wild fawn from the mountains, Nursing its life with a thousand fountains, It kisses the heath-flower's trembling bell, And the mosses that love its margin well.

Fairy beings, one might dream,
Look from the breast of that silver stream,
Fearless, holy, and blissful things,
Flashing the dew-foam from their wings,
As they glide away, away for ever,
Borne seaward on some stately river.

That silver brook, it windeth on
Over slabs of fretted stone,
Till it cometh to the forehead vast
Of those gorgon rocks, that cast

Their features many a fathom under,
And, like a launch through surge of thunder,
From the trembling ledge it flings
The treasures of a thousand springs;
As if to end their blissful play,
And throw the spell of its life away.

Like a pillar of Parian stone
That in some old temple shone,
Or a slender shaft of living star,
Gleams that foam-fall from afar;
But the column is melted down below
Into a gulf of seething snow,

And the stream steals away from its whirl of hoar,

As bright and as lovely as before.

There are rainbows in the morning sun, Many a blushing trembling one, Arches of rarest jewelry,

Where the elfin fairies be,

Through the glad air dancing merrily.

Such is the brook, so pure, so glad, That sparkled high and bounded mad, From the quiet waters, where

It took the form of a thing so fair.

Only it mocks the heart within, To wander by the wild Loch Skene, At cry of moorcock, when the day Gathers his legions of light away.

For the sadness of a fallen throne Reigns when the golden sun hath gone, And the tarn and the hills and the misted stream

Are shaded away to a mournful dream.

THE ANGLER'S TRYSTING-TREE.

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Meet the morn upon the lea;
Are the emeralds of the spring

On the angler's trysting-tree?
Tell, sweet thrushes, tell to me!
Are there buds on our willow-tree?
Buds and birds on our trysting-tree?

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Have you met the honey-bee,
Circling upon rapid wing,

Round the angler's trysting-tree?
Up, sweet thrushes, up and see!
Are there bees at our willow-tree?
Birds and bees at the trysting-tree?

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Are the fountains gushing free?
Is the south wind wandering

Through the angler's trysting-tree?
Up, sweet thrushes, tell to me!
Is there wind up our willow-tree?
Wind or calm at our trysting-tree?

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing!

Wile us with a merry glee; To the flowery haunts of springTo the angler's trysting-tree. Tell, sweet thrushes, tell to me! Are there flowers 'neath our willow-tree? Spring and flowers at the trysting-tree?

THE BRITISH OAK.

The oak is Britain's pride!
The lordliest of trees,
The glory of her forest-side,

The guardian of her seas!

Its hundred arms are brandish'd wide To brave the wintry breeze.

Our hearts shall never quail

Below the servile yoke,
Long as our seamen trim the sail,

And wake the battle smoke-
Long as they stem the stormy gale
On planks of British oak!

Then in its native mead

The golden acorn lay,

And watch with care the bursting seed,
And guard the tender spray;
England will bless us for the deed
In some far future day!

Oh! plant the acorn tree

Upon each Briton's grave; So shall our island ever be

The island of the braveThe mother-nurse of liberty, And empress o'er the wave!

LET ITHER ANGLERS. Let ither anglers choose their ain, An' ither waters tak' the lead; O' Hieland streams we covet nane, But gie to us the bonnie Tweed! An' gie to us the cheerfu' burn That steals into its valley fair

The streamlets that at ilka turn

Sae saftly meet an' mingle there. The lanesome Tala and the Lyne,

An' Manor wi' its mountain rills, An' Etterick, whose waters twine

Wi' Yarrow, frae the forest hills; An Gala, too, an' Teviot bright,

An' mony a stream o' playfu' speed; Their kindred valleys a' unite

Amang the braes o' bonnie Tweed.

There's no a hole abune the Crook,

Nor stane nor gentle swirl aneath, Nor drumlie rill, nor fairy brook,

That daunders through the flowery heath, But ye may fin' a subtle trout,

A' gleamin' ower wi' starn an' bead, An' mony a sawmon sooms aboot, Below the bields o' bonnie Tweed.

Frae Holylee to Clovenford,

A chancier bit ye canna hae, So gin ye tak' an angler's word,

Ye'd through the whins an' ower the brae, An' work awa' wi' cunnin' hand

Yer birzy hackles black and reid;
The saft sough o' a slender wand
Is meetest music for the Tweed!

MUSINGS ON THE BANKS OF THE TEVIOT.

With thy windings, gentle Teviot!

Through life's summer I have travelledShared in all thy merry gambols,

All thy mazy course unravell'd.

Every pool I know and shallow,

Every circumstance of channel, Every incident historic

Blent with old or modern annal,

Which, within thy famous valley,
Dealt a mercy or a sorrow-
Every song and every legend
Which has passed into its morrow.
Who has loved thee, artless river,
Best of all thy single wooers?
Of thy wayward, witching waters,
Who most ardent of pursuers?

On thy banks, a constant dreamer,
Sitting king among his fancies,
Casting all his wealth of musing

Into thy tried course of chances.

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