HARP of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark,
On purple peaks a deeper shade descending;
In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark,
The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending.
Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending,
And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy;
Thy numbers sweet with nature's vespers blending,
With distant echo from the fold and lea,
And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee.

Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel harp!
Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway,
And little reck I of the censure sharp

May idly cavil at an idle lay.

Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way,
Through secret woes the world has never known,
When on the weary night dawn'd wearier day,
And bitterer was the grief devour'd alone.

That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress! is thine own.

Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire,
Some Spirit of the Air has waked thy string!
'Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire,
'Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing.
Receding now, the dying numbers ring

Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell,
And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring
A wandering witch-note of the distant spell—
And now, 'tis silent all !-Enchantress, fare thee well!

NOTES.

THE LADY OF THE LAKE.

"Tine-man," p. 42.-Archibald, the third Earl of Douglas, was so unfortunate in all his enterprises that he acquired the epithet of "Tineman," because he tined, or lost, his followers in every battle which he fought.

"And Satyrs," etc., p. 82.-Scott is not here guilty of any anachronism, though the word "satyr” is doubtless misleading. The Highlanders had a mythological satyr, or urisk.

"As their Tinchel," etc., p. 158 -A circle of sportsmen, who, by surrounding a greater space, and gradually narrowing, brought immense quantities of deer together, which usually made desperate efforts to break through the Tinchel.

THE LORD OF THE ISLES.

'By Woden wild-my grandsire's oath," p. 212.-The Macleods were of Scandinavian descent-ancient worshippers of Thor and Woden.

"Up Tarbert's western lake they bore,

Then dragg'd their bark the isthmus o'er."-P, 250.

The peninsula of Cantire is joined to South Knapdale by a very narrow isthmus, formed by the western and eastern Loch of Tarbert. These two saltwater lakes, or bays, encroach so far upon the land, and the extremities come so near to each other that there is not a mile of land to divide them. "Tarbert" itself is anglicised Gaelic for "an isthmus.”

THE scene of this poem lies, at first, in the Castle of Artornish, on the coast of Argyleshire; and, afterwards, in the Islands of Skye and Arran, and upon the coast of Ayrshire. Finally, it is laid near Stirling. The story opens in the spring of the year 1307, when Bruce, who had been driven out of Scotland by the English, and the Barons who adhered to that foreign interest, returned from the Island of Rachrin, on the coast of Ireland, again to assert his claims to the Scottish crown. Many of the personages and incidents introduced are of historical celebrity. The authorities used are chiefly those of the venerable Lord Hailes, as well entitled to be called the restorer of Scottish history, as Bruce the restorer of Scottish monarchy, and of Archdeacon Barbour.

A

CANTO FIRST.

UTUMN departs-but still his mantle's fold
Rests on the groves of noble Somerville,
Beneath a shroud of russet dropp'd with gold
Tweed and his tributaries mingle still;
Hoarser the wind, and deeper sounds the rill,
Yet lingering notes of sylvan music swell,
The deep-toned cushat, and the redbreast shrill;
And yet some tints of summer splendour tell

When the broad sun sinks down on Ettrick's western fell.

Autumn departs-from Gala's fields no more
Come rural sounds our kindred banks to cheer;
Blent with the stream, and gale that wafts it o'er,
No more the distant reaper's mirth we hear.
The last blithe shout hath died upon our ear,
And harvest-home hath hush'd the clanging wain,
On the waste hill no forms of life appear,

Save where, sad laggard of the autumnal train, Some age-struck wanderer gleans few ears of scatter'd grain.

Deem'st thou these saddened scenes have pleasure still, Lovest thou through Autumn's fading realms to stray, To see the heath-flower wither'd on the hill,

To listen to the wood's expiring lay,

To note the red leaf shivering on the spray,

To mark the last bright tints the mountain stain,
On the waste fields to trace the gleaner's way,

And moralise on mortal joy and pain ?—

O! if such scenes thou lovest, scorn not the minstrel strain.

No! do not scorn, although its hoarser note
Scarce with the cushat's homely song can vie,
Though faint its beauties as the tints remote,
That gleam through mist in autumn's evening sky,
And few as leaves that tremble, sear and dry,
When wild November hath his bugle wound;
Nor mock my toil-a lonely gleaner I,

Through fields time-wasted, on sad inquest bound, Where happier bards of yore have richer harvest found.

So shalt thou list, and haply not unmoved,
To a wild tale of Albyn's warrior day;

In distant lands, by the rough West reproved,
Still live some relics of the ancient lay.

For, when on Coolin's hills the lights decay,
With such the Seer of Skye the eve beguiles;
'Tis known amid the pathless wastes of Reay,
In Harries known, and in Iona's piles,
Where rest from mortal coil the Mighty of the Isles.

I.

WAKE, Maid of Lorn!" the Minstrels sung.
Thy rugged halls, Artornish! rung,

And the dark seas, thy towers that lave,
Heaved on the beach a softer wave,
As 'mid the tuneful choir to keep
The diapason of the Deep.

Lull'd were the winds of Inninmore,
And green Loch-Alline's woodland shore,
As if wild woods and waves had pleasure
In listing to the lovely measure.
And ne'er to symphony more sweet
Gave mountain echoes answer meet,
Since, met from mainland and from isle,
Ross, Arran, Ilay, and Argyle,
Each minstrel's tributary lay
Paid homage to the festal day.
Dull and dishonour'd were the bard,
Worthless of guerdon and regard,
Deaf to the hope of minstrel fame,
Or lady's smiles, his noblest aim,
Who on that morn's resistless call
Were silent in Aitornish hall.