With breath drawn in, the murderous crew

Stood listening to the yell;

And greater still their wonder grew,

As on their ear it fell.

They listen'd for a human shriek

Amid the jarring sound;

They only heard, in echoes weak,
The murmurs of the hound.

The death-bell rung, and wide were flung

The castle gates amain;
While hurry out the armed rout,
And marshal on the plain.

Ah! ne'er before in Border feud
Was seen so dire a fray!
Through glittering lances Keeldar hew'd

A red corse-paven way.

ever employed in Scotland; but he believes the vestiges of something very similar have been discovered in the ruins of old castles.

His helmet, form'd of mermaid-sand,
No lethal brand could dint;
No other arms could e'er withstand
The axe of earth-fast flint.

In Keeldar's plume the holly green,
And rowan leaves, nod on,

And vain Lord Soulis's sword was seen,
Though the hilt was adderstone.

Then

up the Wee Brown Man he rose, By Soulis of Liddesdale :

"In vain," he said, "a thousand blows "Assail the charmed mail.

"In vain by land your arrows glide, "In vain your faulchions gleam: "No spell can stay the living tide, * "Or charm the rushing stream."

* That no species of magic had any effect over a running stream, was a common opinion among the vulgar, and is alluded to in Burns's admirable tale of Tam o'Shanter.

And now young

Keeldar reach'd the stream,

Above the foamy lin;

The Border lances round him gleam,

And force the warrior in.

The holly floated to the side,

And the leaf of the rowan pale: Alas! no spell could charm the tide, Nor the lance of Liddesdale.

Swift was the Cout o' Keeldar's course

Along the lily lee;

But home came never hound nor horse,

And never home came he.

Where weeps the birch with branches green,

Without the holy ground,

Between two old gray stones is seen
The warrior's ridgy mound.

And the hunters bold of Keeldar's train

Within yon castle's wall,

In a deadly sleep must aye remain,

Till the ruin'd towers down fall.

Each in his hunter's garb array'd,
Each holds his bugle horn;

Their keen hounds at their feet are laid,

That ne'er shall wake the morn.

THE MERMAID.

THE following poem is founded upon a Gaelic traditional ballad, called Macphail of Colonsay, and the Mermaid of Corrivrekin. The dangerous gulf of Corrivrekin lies between the islands of Jura and Scarba, and the superstition of the islanders has tenanted its shelves and eddies with all the fabulous monsters and demons of the ocean. Among these, according to a universal tradition, the Mermaid is the most remarkable. In her dwelling, and in her appearance, the Mermaid of the northern nations resembles the Syren of the ancients. The appendages of a comb and mirror are probably of Celtic invention.

The Gaelic story bears, that Macphail of Colonsay was carried off by a Mermaid, while passing the gulf above mentioned: that they resided together in a grotto beneath the sea for several years, during which time she bore him five children: but finally he tired of her society, and having prevailed upon her to carry him near the shore of Colonsay, he escaped to land.

The inhabitants of the Isle of Man have a number of such stories, which may be found in Waldron. One bears, that