Thou know'st it well,-nor fen, nor sedge,
Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge;
Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink
At once upon the level brink;
And just a trace of silver sand1

Marks where the water meets the land.
Far in the mirror, bright and blue,
Each hill's huge outline you may view;
Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,

Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake, is there,

9

In

called the Loch of the Lowes, and surrounded by mountains. the winter, it is still frequented by flights of wild swans; hence my friend Mr Wordsworth's lines :—

"The swan on sweet St Mary's lake

Floats double, swan and shadow."

Near the lower extremity of the lake, are the ruins of Dryhope tower, the birth-place of Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope, and famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. She was married to Walter Scott of Harden, no less renowned for his depredations, than his bride for her beauty. Her romantic appellation was, in latter days, with equal justice, conferred on Miss Mary Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch of the Harden family. The author well remembers the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which procured her the name. The words usually sung to the air of " Tweedside," beginning, Flora disclose," were composed in her honour.

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brink;

And just a line of pebbly sand."]

[MS." Far traced upon the lake you view

What beauties does

The hills' {huge} sides and sombre hue."}

Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine.
Yet even this nakedness has power,
And aids the feeling of the hour:
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,
Where living thing conceal'd might lie ;
Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,

Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell;
There's nothing left to fancy's guess,

You see that all is loneliness:

And silence aids—though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills;
In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep;
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear, But well I ween the dead are near; For though, in feudal strife, a foe Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low,1

It was

1 The chapel of St Mary of the Lowes (de lacubus) was situated on the eastern side of the lake, to which it gives name. injured by the clan of Scott, in a feud with the Cranstouns; but continued to be a place of worship during the seventeenth century. The vestiges of the building can now scarcely be traced; but the burial ground is still used as a cemetery. A funeral, in a spot so very retired, has an uncommonly striking effect. The vestiges of the chaplain's house are yet visible. Being in a high situation, it commanded a full view of the lake, with the opposite mountain of

Yet still, beneath the hallow'd soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers pray'd.

If age had tamed the passions' strife,1
And fate had cut my ties to life,

Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell,
And rear again the chaplain's cell,
Like that same peaceful hermitage,
Where Milton long'd to spend his age.
'Twere sweet to mark the setting day,
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died

On the broad lake, and mountain's side,
"Thus pleasures fade away;

To say,

Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,

And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;"

Bourhope, belonging, with the lake itself, to Lord Napier. On the left hand is the tower of Dryhope, mentioned in a preceding note.

1["A few of the lines which follow breathe as true a spirit of peace and repose, as even the simple strains of our venerable Walton."-Monthly Review.]

2 ["And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heaven doth show,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain."
Il Penseroso.]

Then gaze on Dryhope's ruin'd tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded Flower:
And when that mountain-sound I heard,
Which bids us be for storm prepared,
The distant rustling of his wings,
As up his force the Tempest brings,
'Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the Wizard's grave;

That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust.
From company of holy dust;1

On which no sunbeam ever shines—
(So superstition's creed divines)-—
Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,
Heave her broad billows to the shore ;
And mark the wild-swans mount the gale,
Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,2
And ever stoop again, to lave

Their bosoms on the surging wave:
Then, when against the driving hail
No longer might my plaid avail,

1 At one corner of the burial ground of the demolished chapel, but without its precincts, is a small mound, called Binram's Corse, where tradition deposits the remains of a necromantic priest, the former tenant of the chaplainry. His story much resembles that of Ambrosio in "The Monk," and has been made the theme of a ballad, by my friend Mr James Hogg, more poetically designed the Ettrick Shepherd. To his volume, entitled "The Mountain Bard," which contains this, and many other legendary stories and ballads of great merit, I refer the curious reader.

2 [MS." Spread through broad mist their snowy sail."]

Back to my lonely home retire,
And light my lamp, and trim my fire;
There ponder o'er some mystic lay,
Till the wild tale had all its sway,1
And, in the bittern's distant shriek,
I heard unearthly voices speak,

1

2

And thought the Wizard Priest was come,
To claim again his ancient home!
And bade my busy fancy range,

To frame him fitting shape and strange,
Till from the task my brow I clear'd, 2
And smiled to think that I had fear'd.

But chief, 'twere sweet to think such life,
(Though but escape from fortune's strife,)
Something most matchless good and wise,
A great and grateful sacrifice;

And deem each hour, to musing given,
A step upon the road to heaven.

Yet him, whose heart is ill at ease,
Such peaceful solitudes displease :
He loves to drown his bosom's jar
Amid the elemental war:

And my black Palmer's choice had been
Some ruder and more savage scene,

[MS.-"Till fancy wild had all her sway."]

* [MS.—“ Till from the task my brain I clear'd.”]