THE MAID OF ISLA

1822

AIR-'The Maid of Isla.'

Written for Mr. George Thomson's Scottish Melodies.

O MAID of Isla, from the cliff

That looks on troubled wave and sky, Dost thou not see yon little skiff

Contend with ocean gallantly?

Now beating 'gainst the breeze and surge,
And steeped her leeward deck in foam,
Why does she war unequal urge? -

O Isla's maid, she seeks her home.

O Isla's maid, yon sea-bird mark,

Her white wing gleams through mist and spray Against the storm-cloud lowering dark,

As to the rock she wheels away;

Where clouds are dark and billows rave,

Why to the shelter should she come
Of cliff, exposed to wind and wave?
O maid of Isla, 't is her home!

As breeze and tide to yonder skiff.

--

Thou 'rt adverse to the suit I bring,

And cold as is yon wintry cliff

Where seabirds close their wearied wing.

Yet cold as rock, unkind as wave,

Still, Isla's maid, to thee I come; For in thy love or in his grave

Must Allan Vourich find his home.

FAREWELL TO THE MUSE

1822

ENCHANTRESS, farewell, who so oft has decoyed me

At the close of the evening through woodlands to

roam,

Where the forester lated with wonder espied me

Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home. Farewell, and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking The language alternate of rapture and woe:

O! none but some lover whose heart-strings are breaking The pang that I feel at our parting can know!

Each joy thou couldst double, and when there came

sorrow

Or pale disappointment to darken my way,

What voice was like thine, that could sing of to-morrow
Till forgot in the strain was the grief of to-day!
But when friends drop around us in life's weary waning,
The grief, Queen of Numbers, thou canst not assuage;
Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining,
The languor of pain and the chillness of age.

'T was thou that once taught me in accents bewailing To sing how a warrior lay stretched on the plain,

And a maiden hung o'er him with aid unavailing,
And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain;
As vain thy enchantments, O Queen of wild Numbers,
To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o'er,
And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers -
Farewell, then, Enchantress;-I meet thee no more.

NIGEL'S INITIATION AT WHITEFRIARS

From Chapter XVII of The Fortunes of Nigel, published in 1822.

YOUR suppliant, by name

Nigel Grahame,

In fear of mishap

From a shoulder-tap;

And dreading a claw

From the talons of law,

That are sharper than briars;

His freedom to sue

And rescue by you:

Through weapon and wit,

From warrant and writ,

From bailiff's hand,

From tipstaff's wand,

Is come hither to Whitefriars.

By spigot and barrel,

By bilboe and buff,

Thou art sworn to the quarrel
Of the blades of the Huff.

For Whitefriars and its claims

To be champion or martyr,