So of old the Hebrew maiden,
'Mid the Galilean mountains
Leaving all her childhood time,
With her kinsfolk, incense-laden,
By Kedron's brook, Siloah's fountain,
Zion's hill awe-struck would climb.

As they pass within the kirkyard,
Some old eyes long used to stoop
Rose and brightened on these maidens,
Youngest of the family group,
Marion's flaxen ringlets, Moira's
Large soft eyes with downward droop.

Loved ones of the country people,
They had dandled them on their knees,
Watched them with their bairnies ranging
The shore coves and mountain leas;
Year by year beheld their beauty
Like a summer dawn increase:
Now on this their first communion
Those old eyes look blessing and peace.

Sweet the chime from ruined belfry
Stealeth; at its peaceful call
Round the knoll whereon the preacher
Takes his stand, they gather all:
In whole families seated, o'er them
Hallowed stillness seems to fall.

There they sit, the men bareheaded
By their wives; in reverence meek
Many an eye to heaven is lifted,
Many lips, not heard to speak,
Mutely moving, on their worship
From on high a blessing seek.

Some on gray-mossed headstones seated,
Some on mounds of wild thyme balm,
Grave-browed men and tartaned matrons
Swell the mighty Celtic psalm,
On from glen to peak repeated,
Far into the mountain calm.

Then the aged pastor rose,
White with many a winter's snows
Fallen o'er his ample brows;
And his voice of pleading prayer,
Cleaving slow the still blue air,
All his people's need laid bare.

Laden with o'erflowing feeling
Then streamed on his fervid chant,

In the old Highland tongue appealing
To each soul's most hidden want,
With the life and deep soul-healing
He who died now lives to grant.

Slow the people round the table
Outspread, white as mountain sleet,
Gather, the blue heaven above them,
And their dead beneath their feet;
There in perfect reconcilement
Death and life immortal meet.

Noiseless round that fair white table
'Mid their fathers' tombstones spread,
Hoary-headed elders moving,
Bear the hallowed wine and bread,
While devoutly still the people
Low in prayer bow the head.

Tender hearts, their first communion,
Many a one was in that crowd;
With them in mute adoration,
Breathless Moira and Marion bowed,
While far up on yon blue summit
Paused the silver cloud.

And no sound was heard-save only
Distance-lulled the Atlantic roar,
Over the calm mountains coming
From far Machrahanish shore,
Like an audible eternity
Brooding the hushed people o'er.

Soon they go-but ere another
Day of hallowed bread and wine,
Some now here shall have ascended
To communion more divine,

Some have changed their old hill-dwellings,
Some have swept the tropic line.

Meek and very lowly

Souls, bowed down with reverent fear,
This their first communion day!

To the awful presence holy
Dread it is to draw so near,

Pain it were to turn away.

So of old the Hebrew maiden,
'Mid the Galilean mountains
Leaving all her childhood time,
With her kinsfolk, incense-laden,
By Kedron's brook, Siloah's fountain,
Zion's hill awe-struck would climb.

As they pass within the kirkyard,
Some old eyes long used to stoop
Rose and brightened on these maidens,
Youngest of the family group,
Marion's flaxen ringlets, Moira's
Large soft eyes with downward droop.

Loved ones of the country people,
They had dandled them on their knees,
Watched them with their bairnies ranging
The shore coves and mountain leas;
Year by year beheld their beauty
Like a summer dawn increase:
Now on this their first communion
Those old eyes look blessing and peace.

Sweet the chime from ruined belfry
Stealeth; at its peaceful call
Round the knoll whereon the preacher
Takes his stand, they gather all:
In whole families seated, o'er them
Hallowed stillness seems to fall.

There they sit, the men bareheaded
By their wives; in reverence meek
Many an eye to heaven is lifted,
Many lips, not heard to speak,
Mutely moving, on their worship
From on high a blessing seek.

Some on gray-mossed headstones seated,
Some on mounds of wild thyme balm,
Grave-browed men and tartaned matrons
Swell the mighty Celtic psalm,
On from glen to peak repeated,
Far into the mountain calm.

Then the aged pastor rose,
White with many a winter's snows
Fallen o'er his ample brows;
And his voice of pleading prayer,
Cleaving slow the still blue air,
All his people's need laid bare.

Laden with o'erflowing feeling
Then streamed on his fervid chant,

In the old Highland tongue appealing
To each soul's most hidden want,
With the life and deep soul-healing
He who died now lives to grant.

Slow the people round the table
Outspread, white as mountain sleet,
Gather, the blue heaven above them,
And their dead beneath their feet;
There in perfect reconcilement
Death and life immortal meet.

Noiseless round that fair white table
'Mid their fathers' tombstones spread,
Hoary-headed elders moving,
Bear the hallowed wine and bread,
While devoutly still the people
Low in prayer bow the head.

Tender hearts, their first communion,
Many a one was in that crowd;
With them in mute adoration,
Breathless Moira and Marion bowed,
While far up on yon blue summit
Paused the silver cloud.

And no sound was heard-save only
Distance-lulled the Atlantic roar,
Over the calm mountains coming
From far Machrahanish shore,
Like an audible eternity
Brooding the hushed people o'er.

Soon they go-but ere another
Day of hallowed bread and wine,
Some now here shall have ascended
To communion more divine,

Some have changed their old hill-dwellings,
Some have swept the tropic line.

Sterner still, more drearly driven, There o' nights the north wind raves His long homeless lamentation,

As from Arctic seamen's graves,

Till his mighty snow-sieve shaken

Down hath blinded all the lift,
Iid the mountains, plunged the moorland
Fathom-deep in mounded drift.

Such a time, while yells of slaughter
Burst at midnight on Glencoe,
Hither flying babes and mothers

Perished 'mid the waste of snow.

Countless storms have scrawled unheeded Characters o'er these houseless moors; But that night engraven forever

In all human hearts endures.

Yet the heaven denies not healing
To the darkest human things,
And to-day some kindlier feeling

Sunshine o'er the desert flings.

Though the long deer-grass is moveless,
And the corrie-burns are dry,
Music comes in gleams and shadows
Woven beneath the dreaming eye.

Desert not deserted wholly!

Where such calms as these can come,Never tempest more majestic

Than this boundless silence dumb.

THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR.

Will ye gang wi' me and fare
To the bush aboon Traquair?

Ower the high Minchmuir we'll up and awa',

This bonny summer noon,

While the sun shines fair aboon,

A lang driech road, ye had better let it be, Save some auld skrunts o' birk

I' the hill-side lirk,

There's nocht i' the warld for man to sce.

But the blithe lilt o' that air,
"The bush aboon Traquair,"

I need nae mair, it's eneuch for me;
Owre my cradle its sweet chimne
Cam' sughin' frae auld time,
Sae tide what may, I'll awa' and see.

And what saw ye there

At the bush aboon Traquair?

Or what did ye hear that was worth your heed? I heard the cushies croon

Through the gowden afternoon,

And the Quair burn singing down to the Vale o' Tweed.

And birks saw I three or four,

Wi' gray moss bearded owre,

The last that are left o' the birken shaw,
Whar mony a simmer e'en

Fond lovers did convene,

Thae bonny bonny gloamins that are lang awa'.

Frae mony a but and ben,

By muirland, holm, and glen,

They cam' ane hour to spen' on the greenwood sward,

But lang hae lad and lass

Been lying 'neath the grass,

The green green grass o' Traquair kirkyard.

They were blest beyond compare, When they held their trysting there, Amang thae greenest hills shone on by the sun. And then they wan a rest,

The lownest and the best,

I' Traquair kirkyard when a' was dune.

Now the birks to dust may rot, Names o' luvers be forgot,

ha'.

And what would ye do there,

At the bush aboon Traquair?

But the blithe lilt o' yon air

Keeps the bush aboon Traquair,

And the luve that ance was there, aye fresh and green.

"My education," writes Sir Noel to the Editor, "which was of a very desultory kind, was