The last of all the bards was he,
Who sang of Border chivalry.
For, well-a-day! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppress'd,
Wished to be with them, and at rest.
No more on prancing palfrey borne
He carolled light as lark at morn;
No longer courted and caress'd,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He poured to lord and lady gay

The unpremeditated lay;

Old times were changed, old manners gone;
A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne;
The bigots of the iron time

Had called his harmless art a crime.
A wandering harper, scorned and poor,
He begged his bread from door to door!
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.

He passed where Newark's stately tower
Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower.
The minstrel gazed with wistful eye-
No humbler resting place was nigh;
With hesitating step, at last

The embattled portal-arch he pass'd,
Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft rolled back the tide of war,
But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor.
The Duchess marked his weary pace,
His timid mien, and reverend face,
And bade her page the menials tell,
That they should tend the old man well:

For she had known adversity,

Though born in such a high degree;
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride:
And, would the noble Duchess deign
To listen to an old man's strain,

Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,
He thought even yet, the sooth to speak;
That, if she loved the harp to hear,
He could make music to her ear.

The humble boon was soon obtained;
The aged minstrel audience gained.
But when he reached the room of state,
Where she with all her ladies sate,
Perchance he wished his boon denied;
For, when to tune his harp he tried,
His trembling hand had lost the ease
Which marks security to please:
And scenes, long past, of joy and pain,
Came wildering o'er his aged brain—
He tried to tune his harp in vain.
The pitying Duchess praised its chime,
And
gave him heart, and gave him time,
Till every string's according glee
Was blended into harmony.

And then, he said, he would full fain
He could recall an ancient strain
He never thought to sing again.
It was not framed for village churls,
But for high dames and mighty earls;

So had he seen, in fair Castile,

The youth in glittering squadrons start;
Sudden the flying jennet wheel,

And hurl the unexpected dart.

He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright,
That spirits were riding the northern light.

By a steel-clenched postern door,
They entered now the chancel tall;
The darkened roof rose high aloof

On pillars, lofty, and light, and small;
The key-stone, that locked each ribbéd aisle,
Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-feuille ;
The corbells were carved grotesque and grim;
And the pillars, with clustered shafts so trim,
With base and with capital flourished around,
Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound.

Full many a scutcheon and banner riven
Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven
Around the screenéd altar's pale!
And there the dying lamps did burn
Before thy low and lonely urn,

O gallant chief of Otterburne,

And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale !

O fading honours of the dead!

O high ambition, lowly laid!

The moon on the east oriel shone
Through slender shafts of shapely stone
By foliaged tracery combined;

Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand
'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand,

In many a freakish knot, had twined;
Then framed a spell, when the work was done,
And chang'd the willow's wreaths to stone.

The silver light, so pale and faint,
Showed many a prophet and many a saint,
Whose image on the glass was dyed;
Full in the midst, his cross of red
Triumphant Michael brandished,

And trampled the apostate's pride.
The moonbeam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

PATRIOTISM.

BY SCOTT.

BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,

From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

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,
Think what is now, and what hath been,
Seems as, to me, of all bereft,

Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
And thus I love them better still,

Even in extremity of ill.

By Yarrow's stream still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot Stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The Bard may draw his parting groan.

Hushed is the harp-the Minstrel gone.
And did he wander forth alone?
Alone, in indigence and age,
To linger out his pilgrimage?
No!-close beneath proud Newark's tower
Arose the Minstrel's lowly bower;

A simple hut; but there was seen
The little garden hedged with green,
The cheerful hearth, and lattice clean.
There sheltered wanderers, by the blaze,
Oft heard the tale of other days;
For much he loved to ope his door,
And give the aid he begged before.
So passed the winter's day; but still
When summer smiled on sweet Bowhill,
And July's eve, with balmy breath,
Waved the blue-bells on Newark heath;