Dread horror seizes on her sinking heart, A mortal chillness shudders at her breast, Her soul shrinks fainting from death's icy dart, The groan scarce utter'd dies but half express'd, And down she sinks in deadly swoon oppress'd: But when at length, awaking from her trance, The terrors of her fate stand all confess'd, In vain she casts around her timid glance, The rudely frowning scenes her former joys enhance.

No traces of those joys, alas! remain ;

A desert solitude alone appears.

No verdant shade relieves the sandy plain,

The wide-spread waste no gentle fountain cheers,
One barren face the dreary prospect wears;
Nought through the vast horizon meets her eye
To calm the dismal tumult of her fears,
No trace of human habitation nigh,

A sandy wild beneath, above a threatening sky.

From Psyche.

SONNET.

As one who late hath lost a friend adored,
Clings with sick pleasure to the faintest trace
Resemblance offers in another's face,

Or sadly gazing on that form deplored,
Would clasp the silent canvas to his breast:
So muse I on the good I have enjoy'd,
The wretched victim of my hopes destroy'd;
On images of peace I fondly rest,

Or in the page, where weeping Fancy mourns,
I love to dwell upon each tender line,

And think the bliss once tasted still is mine;
While cheated Memory to the past returns,

And from the present leads my shivering heart
Back to those scenes from which it wept to part.

THIS simple poet of nature, who is better known by the title of the Ettrick Shepherd, was born on the banks of the Ettrick, in Selkirkshire, on the 25th of January, 1772. The parents of the future poet were so poor, that they were unable to afford him even that measure of education which, in Sectland, is common to the most indigent; but the mother of James, a woman of strong natural understanding and enthusiastic spirit, inspired him, in early life, with those tastes and intellectual hab.ts which afterwards burst upon the world in the beautiful poetry of The Queen's Wake. As he was sent from home in the capacity of a cow-herd at the age of seven, and continued to labour as a shepherd till the period of manhood, his education was carried on by his own industry, and at brief intervals, so that he never learned any language but his own. He also taught himself a rough sort of penmanship while employed in feeding his flocks. But the beautiful border ballads with which his mother had stored his mind, continued to operate upon his faculties with a slow and silent but steady progress, and when he had reached the age of twenty-four, he attempted to express his feelings in numbers. These efforts of his rustic muse were sufficiently humble, consisting of songs and ballads, to be sung by the neighbouring lasses in chorus; but the artless approbation of these his rural friends, and the title which they gave him of Jamie the Poeter, were sufficient to repay his labours, and stimulate him to higher efforts; but, above all, the example of Burns fired his imagination, and became the mark of his ambition and his hope. The Ayrshire ploughman, indeed, had given an impulse to the lower classes both in England and Scotland, which manifested itself in poetical blacksmiths, shoemakers, and peasants, who startled society with the new character they had assumed. The first attempt of Hogg in authorship was characteristic of that whimsical thoughtlessness of the common rules of prudence, by which the whole of his succeeding life was distinguished. Having driven a flock of sheep into Edinburgh for sale, and having failed in disposing of the whole, he put the remainder into a park, and resolved to spend the few days of interval before next market-day in preparing a volume for the press. He wrote several poems from memory, and put them into the hands of a printer; but when the work was finished and sent to him, after he had almost forgotten the circumstance, he found it so crowded with typographical errors, as would have extinguished the vanity of authorship in most young poets. Hogg, however, was not to be so daunted, and he continued to write on. In 1801, he was so fortunate as to obtain the acquaintanceship of Sir Walter Scott, who kindly interested him. self in the success of the poetical shepherd; the consequence of which was, that Hogg soon after published his Mountain Bard, a collection of poems written in imitation of the old border ballads. This work was so successful, that, after having tried farming without success, he threw his plaid about his shoulders and came to Edinburgh, resolving to place his dependance on literature alone. His first attempt in this capacity was the Forest Minstrel, which procured him nothing but a little poctical reputation. He then attempted a periodical, called, The Spy; but a twelvemonth sufficed to finish its career. But in 1813 appeared his best work, The Queen's Wake, the success of which consoled him for all his previous disappointments. The public were delighted with the genuine poetry it displayed, as well as the interest of the tales, and fresh editions were called for in rapid succession. He had now acquired such a literary reputation as encouraged him to continue the labours of his pen, and he was not only a frequent contributor to Blackwood's Magazine and the Annuals, but he wrote numerous poems and novels, none of which, however, have equalled the interest and talent of The Queen's Wake. This work, and a few of his songs, will always constitute the chief ground of his poetical distinction. It was among fairies and phantoms, and the deeds of past ages, that he found the real world of his affections; so that when he descended to common events and every-day characters, his delineations were generally unnatural or tame. Having reached his sixty-fourth year, with a halo and vigorous constitution that promised a much longer life, his health suddenly declined, and he died on the 21st of November, 1835.

THE RETURN OF THE BURIED C.

'Twas late, late on a Sabbath night!

At the hour of the ghost, and the restless sprite! The mass at Carelha' had been read,

And all the mourners were bound to bed,

When a foot was heard on the paved floor,
And a gentle rap came to the door.

O God! that such a rap should be

So fraught with ambiguity!

A dim haze clouded every sight;

Each hair had life and stood upright;

No sound was heard throughout the hall,

But the beat of the heart and the cricket's call;

So deep the silence imposed by fear,
That a vacant buzz sang in the ear.

The lady of Carelha' first broke
The breathless hush, and thus she spoke:
"Christ be our shield! who walks so late,
And knocks so gently at my gate?

I felt a pang--it was not dread-
It was the memory of the dead.
O! death is a dull and dreamless sleep!
The mould is heavy, the grave is deep!
Else I had ween'd that foot so free
The step and the foot of my Mary Lee!
And I had ween'd that gentle knell
From the light hand of my daughter fell!
The grave is deep, it may not be!
Haste porter-haste to the door and see."

He took the key with an eye of doubt,
He lifted the lamp, and he look'd about;
His lips a silent prayer address'd,
And the cross was sign'd upon his breast;
Thus mail'd within, the armour of God,
All ghostly to the door he strode.
He wrench'd the bolt with grating din,

He lifted the latch-but none came in!

He thrust out his lamp, and he thrust out his head,
And he saw the face and the robes of the dead!
One sob he heaved, and tried to fly,

But he sank on the earth, and the form came by.

She enter'd the hall, she stood in the door,
Till one by one dropp'd on the floor,
The blooming maiden, and matron old,
The friar grey, and the yeoman bold.
It was like a scene on the Border green,
When the arrows fly and pierce unseen;
And nought was heard within the hall,
But Aves, vows, and groans, withal.
The lady of Carel' stood alone,
But moveless as a statue of stone.

"O! lady mother, thy fears forego;
Why all this terror and this woe?
But late when I was in this place,
Thou would'st not look me in the face;
O! why do you blench at sight of me?
I am thy own child, thy Mary Lee."

"I saw thee dead and cold as clay;
I watch'd thy corpse for many a day;
I saw thee laid in the grave at rest;
I strew'd the flowers upon thy breast;
And I saw the mould heap'd over thee-
Thou art not my child, my Mary Lee."

O'er Mary's face amazement spread; She knew not that she had been dead; She gazed in mood irresolute:

Both stood aghast, and both were mute.

From The Pilgrims of the Sun.

INVOCATION.

Thou holy harp of Judah's land,
That hung the willow boughs upon,
O leave the bowers on Jordan's strand,
And cedar groves of Lebanon:

That I may sound thy sacred string,
Those chords of mystery sublime,
That chimed the songs of Israel's King,
Song that shall triumph over time.

Pour forth the tracing notes again,
That wont of yore the soul to thrill,
In tabernacles of the plain,

Or heights of Zion's holy hill.

O come, ethereal timbrel meet,

In shepherd's hand thou dost delight;
On Kedar hills thy strain was sweet,
And sweet on Bethle'm's plain by night.

And when thy tones the land shall hear,
And every heart conjoins with thee,
The mountain lyre that lingers near
Will lend a wandering melody.

From The Pilgrims of the Sun.

DONALD MACDONALD.

My name it is Donald Macdonald,
I live in the Highlands sae grand;
I've follow'd our banner, an' will do,
Wharever my maker has land.