From wandering on a foreign

strand!

O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy
wood,

Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band,

That knits me to thy rugged strand! Still, as I view each well-known

scene,

But present still, though now unseen!

When brightly shines the prosper.

ous day,

Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.
And, oh, when stoops on Judah's
path

In shade and storm the frequent night,

I have strained the spider's thread 'Gainst the promise of a maid; I have weighed a grain of sand 'Gainst her plight of heart and hand; I told my true love of the token How her faith proved light and her word was broken;

Again her word and truth she plight, And I believed them again ere night.

WANDERING WILLIE.

ALL joy was bereft me the day that you left me,

And climbed the tall vessel to sail yon high sea; [it, O weary betide it! I wandered beside And banned it for parting my Willie and me.

Far o'er the wave hast thou followed thy fortune,

and of Spain;

Ae kiss of welcome's worth twenty at

parting,

Now I hae gotten my Willie again.

When the sky it was mirk, and the winds they were wailing,

I sat on the beach wi' the tear in my ee,

And thought of the bark where my Willie was sailing,

And wished that the tempest could

a' blaw on me.

have wandered,

Enough, thy leal heart has been constant to me.

Alas, the warped and broken board,

How can it bear the painter's dye! The harp of strained and tuneless chord,

How to the minstrel's skill reply! To aching eyes each landscape lowers, To feverish pulse each gale blows chill;

And Araby's or Eden's bowers

Were barren as this moorland hill.

THE VIOLET.

THE violet in her greenwood bower, Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle,

May boast itself the fairest flower

In glen, or copse, or forest dingle.

Though fair her gems of azure hue, Beneath the dewdrop's weight reclining;

I've seen an eye of lovelier hue,

More sweet through watery lustre shining.

The summer sun that dew shall dry,
Ere yet the day be past its mor-
row;
Nor longer in my false love's eye
Remained the tear of parting sor-

row.

HELVELLYN.

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide; All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

Dark green was the spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather,

Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay,

Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,

Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay.

Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,

For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended,

The much-loved remains of her master defended,

And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?

When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start? How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,

Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?

And, oh! was it meet, that -no requiem read o'er him

No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,

And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before himUnhonored the pilgrim from life should depart?

When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,

The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;

With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming; In the proudly - arched chapel the banners are beaming, Far adown the long aisles sacred music is streaming, Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,

When, wildered, he drops from some

cliff huge in stature,

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.

And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,

Thy obsequies sung by the gray plovel flying,

With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,

In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam.

Now, at the fount their life-long thirst are quenching,

Whence rise the gentle showers, the nightly dew.

They drink the quickening streams

through every fibre,

Until with hidden life each seed shall swell;

Then come the winds of God, his word fulfilling,

And bear them back, where He shall please, to dwell.

Thus live meek spirits, duly schooled to duty,

The whirlwind storm may sweep them from their place; What matter if by this affliction

driven

Straight to their God, the fountain of all grace?

And when, at length, the final trial cometh,

Though hurled to unknown worlds,

they shall not die;

Borne not by winds of wrath, but God's own angels,

They feed upon His love and dweil beneath His eye.

Till by the angel of the resurrection, One awful blast through heaven and earth be blown;

floating,

That in their desert homes no mois

ture knew,

sunder,

That all God's ways are true and just shall own!