Eighteen years afterwards the writer of these lines revisited the vale of Yarrow with Walter Scott-immediately before his departure from Abbotsford to Naples, that last hopeless journey-as the trouble came,

"A trouble not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light,
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height;
Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain
For kindred Power departing from their sight."

The autumn leaves were fittingly sear on the birches, or

"But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed

The forest to embolden;

Reddened the fiery hues, and shot

Transparence through the golden."

Thoughts of the past naturally arose, mixed with forebodings about the future-" the morn of youth," "life's temperate noon," "her sober eve," "her night not melancholy;" and, amid it all—

"Yarrow, through the woods,

And down the meadows ranging,
Did meet us with unaltered face,

Though we were changed and changing."

The sur

In 1803, the year of Yarrow Unvisited, Wordsworth passed by Neidpath Castle on the Tweed. roundings of the ancient and massive keep had then quite recently been the scene of a piece of pitiful havoc, on the part of its worthless owner, seldom matched for evil motive and unsparing destruction. To spite his heir chiefly, the last Douglas of Queensberry of his line ordered the cutting down of the old forest-trees that had grown up through the centuries, and long before he or his two predecessors owned an acre of the property. This was carried out, and the steep sides of the picturesque gorge of the Tweed, through which the river in the far past had worked its way against opposing rock, were left defaced and bare, and the whole demesne "beggar'd and outraged." This fired the heart of the poet, and he has given expression to his feelings in these lines:

:

Degenerate Douglas! O the unworthy lord!
Whom mere despite of heart could so far please
And love of havoc (for with such disease
Fame taxes him) that he could send forth word
To level with the dust a noble horde,
A brotherhood of venerable trees,

Leaving an ancient dome, and towers like these
Beggar'd and outraged! Many hearts deplored
The fate of those old trees; and oft with pain
The traveller at this day will stop and gaze
On wrongs, which Nature scarcely seems to heed:
For shelter'd places, bosoms, nooks, and bays,
And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed,
And the green silent pastures, yet remain.”

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CHAPTER IX.

RECENT POETS.

THERE are still a few names in recent times of men in whom the spirit of Border song issued in utterances which may well be cherished by us. I may mention especially William Laidlaw, Thomas Pringle, James Nicol, Thomas Smibert, Andrew Scott, Allan Cunningham, Henry Scott Riddell, and, but lately taken from us, the youthful preacher and poet, Thomas Davidson.

Lucy's Flittin' is the lyric of the Borders which ranks next to The Flowers of the Forest. It was the production of William Laidlaw, the son of the farmer of Blackhouse on the Douglas Burn, the early friend of Hogg, and the lifelong friend and amanuensis of Walter Scott. He was born in 1780, and he died in 1845. Lucy's Flittin' could have been written only by one who had been brought up among the south country glens; who knew and felt the simplicity of rural life and manners there, and who, as a man of true lyrical soul, could for the time entirely forget himself, realise the feelings and

VOL. II.

X

speak the language of the breaking hearted country lassie:

66
""Twas when the wan leaf frae the birk-tree was fa'in',
And Martinmas dowie had wound up the year,

That Lucy row'd up her wee kist wi' her a' in,
And left her auld maister and neebours sae dear;

For Lucy had served in The Glen a' the simmer;

She cam there afore the flower bloomed on the pea,
An orphan was she, and they had been kind till her,
Sure that was the thing brocht the tear to her e'e.

She gaed by the stable where Jamie was stanin';
Richt sair was his kind heart the flittin' to see;
'Fare ye weel, Lucy,' quo' Jamie, and ran in;
The gatherin' tears trickled fast frae his e'e.

As down the burn-side she gaed slow wi' the flittin',
'Fare ye weel, Lucy!' was ilka bird's sang;
She heard the crow sayin't high on the tree sittin',

And robin was chirpin't the brown leaves amang.

Oh, what is't that pits my puir heart in a flutter?
And what gars the tears come sae fast to my e'e?
If I wasna ettled to be ony better,

Then what gars me wish ony better to be?

I'm just like a lammie that loses its mither;
Nae mither or friend the puir lammie can see ;
I fear I hae tint my puir heart a' thegither,
Nae wonder the tears fa' sa fast fra my e'e.

Wi' the rest of my claes I hae row'd up the ribbon,
The bonnie blue ribbon that Jamie ga'e me;
Yestreen, when he ga'e me't, and saw I was sabbin',
I'll never forget the wae blink o' his e'e.

Though now he said naething but 'Fare ye weel, Lucy!"
It made me I neither could speak, hear, nor see;
He couldna say mair but just, 'Fare ye weel, Lucy!'
Yet that I will mind till the day that I dee.