When the moon-beams pale fell through the white hail,

With a wan and a watery ray,

Sad notes of woe seem'd round him to grow,

The dirge of the Elfins gray.

And right at the time of the matin chime

His mystic pace began,

And murmurs deep around him did creep,
Like the moans of a murder'd man.

The matin bell was tolling farewell,
When he reach'd the central ring,
And there he beheld to ice congeal'd
That crew with the Elfin-King.

For aye, at the knell of the matin bell,
When the black monks wend to pray,

The spirits unbless'd have a glimpse of rest
Before the dawn of day.

The sigh of the trees and the rush of the breeze

Then pause on the lonely hill;

And the frost of the dead clings round their head, And they slumber cold and still.

The knight took up the emerald cup,
And the ravens hoarse did scream,

And the shuddering Elfins half rose up,

And murmur'd in their dream:

They inwardly mourn'd, and the thin blood return'd

To every icy limb;

And each frozen eye, so cold and so dry,

'Gan roll with lustre dim.

Then as brave St. Clair did turn him there,

To retrace the mystic track;

He heard the sigh of his lady fair,
Who sobbed behind his back.

He started quick, and his heart beat thick,
And he listen'd in wild amaze;

But the parting bell on his ear it fell, —
And he did not turn to gaze.

With panting breast as he forward press'd,

He trode on a mangled head;

And the skull did scream, and the voice did seem The voice of his mother dead.

He shuddering trode; - On the great name of God He thought, but he nought did say;

-

And the green-sward did shrink as about to sink, And loud laugh'd the Elfins gray.

And loud did resound o'er the unbless'd ground
The wings of the blue Elf-King;

And the ghostly crew to reach him flew ; —
But he cross'd the charmed ring.

The morning was gray, and dying away
Was the sound of the matin bell;

And far to the west the Fays that ne'er rest
Fled where the moon-beams fell.

And Sir Geoffry the bold on the unhallow'd mold
Arose from the green witch-grass;

And he felt his limbs like a dead man's cold,
And he wist not where he was.

And that cup so rare, which the brave St. Clair
Did bear from the ghostly crew,

Was suddenly chang'd from the emerald fair

To the ragged whinstone blue;

And instead of the ale that mantled there,
Was the murky midnight dew.

SCOTTISH MUSIC,

AN ODE.

TO IANTHE.

AGAIN, Sweet syren! breathe again
That deep, pathetic, powerful strain!
Whose melting tones of tender woe
Fall soft as evening's summer dew,
That bathes the pinks and harebells blue
Which in the vales of Tiviot blow.

song

that sooth'd to rest,

Such was the
Far in the green isle of the west,

*

The Celtic warrior's parted shade: Such are the lonely sounds that sweep O'er the blue bosom of the deep, Where ship-wreck'd mariners are laid.

*The Flathinnis, or Celtic paradise.

Ah! sure, as Hindú legends tell, *
When music's tones the bosom swell,
The scenes of former life return;
Ere, sunk beneath the morning star,
We left our parent climes afar,
Immur'd in mortal forms to mourn.

Or if, as ancient sages ween,
Departed spirits half unseen

Can mingle with the mortal throng;
'Tis when from heart to heart we roll
The deep-ton'd music of the soul,
That warbles in our Scottish song.

I hear, I hear, with awful dread,
The plaintive music of the dead!

They leave the amber fields of day:

Soft as the cadence of the wave,

That murmurs round the mermaid's grave,

They mingle in the magic lay.

* The effect of music is explained by the Hindús, as recalling to our memory the airs of paradise, heard in a state of pre-existence.