THE

MAID OF NEIDPATH.

O LOVERS' eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers' ears in hearing;

And love, in life's extremity,

Can lend an hour of cheering.

Disease had been in Mary's bower,

And slow decay from mourning, Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower, To watch her love's returning.

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,

Her form decay'd by pining,

Till through her wasted hand, at night,

You saw the taper shining.

By fits, a sultry hectic hue

Across her cheek was flying;
By fits, so ashy pale she grew,
Her maidens thought her dying.

Yet keenest powers to see and hear,
Seem'd in her frame residing;
Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear,
She heard her lover's riding;

Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd,
She knew, and waved to greet him;
And o'er the battlement did bend,
As on the wing to meet him.

He came he pass'd-an heedless gaze, As o'er some stranger, glancing;

Her welcome, spoke in faultering phrase, Lost in his courser's prancing

The castle arch, whose hollow tone Returns each whisper spoken,

Could hardly catch the feeble moan,

Which told her heart was broken.

THE

BARD'S INCANTATION.

WRITTEN UNDER THE THREAT OF INVASION, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1804.

THE Forest of Glenmore is drear,

It is all of black pine, and the dark oak-tree; And the midnight wind, to the mountain deer, Is whistling the forest lullaby:

The moon looks through the drifting storm,
But the troubled lake reflects not her form,
For the waves roll whitening to the land,
And dash against the shelvy strand.

There is a voice among the trees,

That mingles with the groaning oakThat mingles with the stormy breeze,

And the lake-waves dashing against the rock ;

There is a voice within the wood,

The voice of the Bard in fitful mood;

His song was louder than the blast,

As the Bard of Glenmore through the forest past.

"Wake ye from your sleep of death,
Minstrels and bards of other days!
For the midnight wind is on the heath,
And the midnight meteors dimly blaze!
The Spectre with his Bloody Hand,*
Is wandering through the wild woodland;
The owl and the raven are mute for dread,
And the time is meet to awake the dead!

*The forest of Glenmore is haunted by a spirit called Lhamdearg, or Red-hand.