SONGS FROM THE NOVELS. From Waverley. ST. SWITHIN'S CHAIR. ON Hallow-Mass Eve, ere you boune ye to rest, For on Hallow-Mass Eve the Night-Hag will ride, Sailing through moonshine or swath'd in the cloud. The Lady she sate in St. Swithin's Chair, She mutter'd the spell of Swithin bold, He that dare sit on St. Swithin's Chair, The Baron has been with King Robert his liege, And fain the Lady his fate would know. She shudders and stops as the charm she speaks ;- Or is that sound, betwixt laughter and scream, The moan of the wind sunk silent and low, And the roaring torrent had ceased to flow; The calm was more dreadful than raging storm, When the cold grey mist brought the ghastly form! FLORA MACIVOR'S SONG. THERE is mist on the mountain, and night on the vale, "O change accursed! past are those days; False Murray's ruthless spoilers came, And, for the hearth's domestic blaze, Ascends destruction's volumed flame. "What sheeted phantom wanders wild, Where mountain Eske through woodland flows, Her arms enfold a shadowy child- And half unsheathed his Arran brand. But who, o'er bush, o'er stream and rock, Rides headlong, with resistless speed, Whose bloody poniard's frantic stroke Drives to the leap his jaded steed; Whose cheek is pale, whose eyeballs glare, As one some vision'd sight that saw, Whose hands are bloody, loose his hair? 'Tis he! 'tis he! 'tis Bothwellhaugh. From gory selle,* and reeling steed, Sprung the fierce horseman with a bound, And, reeking from the recent deed, He dash'd his carbine on the ground. Sternly he spoke-"'Tis sweet to hear In good greenwood the bugle blown, But sweeter to Revenge's ear, To drink a tyrant's dying groan. "Your slaughter'd quarry proudly trode, At dawning morn, o'er dale and down, But prouder base-born Murray rode Through old Linlithgow's crowded town. "From the wild Border's humbled side, In haughty triumph marched he, While Knox relax'd his bigot pride, And smiled, the traitorous pomp to see. *Selle-Saddle. A word used by Spenser, and other ancient authors. "Dark Morton, girt with many a spest, Murder's foul minion, led the van; And clash'd their broadswords in the rear The wild Macfarlanes' plaided clan "Glencairn and stout Parkhead were nigh, Obsequious at their Regent's rein, And haggard Lindesay's iron eye, That saw fair Mary weep in vain. "Mid pennon'd spears, a steely grove, Proud Murray's plumage floated high; Scarce could his trampling charger move, So close the minions crowded nigh "From the raised vizor's shade, his eye, Dark-rolling, glanced the ranks al And his steel truncheon, waved on big, Seem'd marshalling the iron throng "But yet his sadden'd brow confess A passing shade of doubt and awr ; Some fiend was whispering in his breast: 'Beware of injured Bothwellhaub!' "The death-shot parts-the cha springs Wild rises tumult's startling roar' And Murray's plumy helmet rings-Rings on the ground, to rise not “2 "What joy the raptured youth can fo.... To hear her love the loved one te Or he, who broaches on his steel The wolf, by whom his infant fell! "But dearer to my injured eye To see in dust proud Murray roll; And mine was ten times trebled joy, To hear him groan his felon soul. "My Margaret's spectre glided nezr; With pride her bleeding victim a And shriek'd in his death-deafen'd en 'Remember injured Bothwellhaugh' "Then speed thee, noble Chatlerault ! Loud bugles join their wild acclaim- But, see! the minstrel vision fails- more; An oak, half-sawn, with the motto through, is an ancient cognizance of the family of Hamilton. The shouts of war die on the gales, The banner'd towers of Evandale. And Vengeance shouting o'er the slain, THE GRAY BROTHER, A FRAGMENT. The imperfect state of this ballad, which was written several years ago, is not a circumstance affected for the purpose of giving it that peculiar interest, which is often found to arise from ungratified curiosity. On the contrary, it was the Editor's intention to have completed the tale, if he had found himself able to succeed to his own satisfaction. Yielding to the opinion of persons, whose judgment, if not biassed by the partiality of friendship, is entitled to deference, he has preferred inserting these verses as a fragment, to his intention of entirely suppressing them. The tradition, upon which the tale is founded, regards a house upon the barony of Gilmerton, near Lasswade, in Mid-Lothian. This building, now called Gilmerton Grange, was originally named Burndale, from the following tragic adventure. The barony of Gilmerton belonged, of yore, to a gentleman named Heron, who had one beautiful daughter. This young lady was seduced by the Abbot of Newbattle, a richly endowed abbey, upon the banks of the South Esk, now a seat of the Marquis of Lothian. Heron came to the knowledge of this circumstance, and learned also, that the lovers carried on their guilty intercourse by the connivance of the lady's nurse, who lived at this house of Gilmerton Grange, or Burndale. formed a resolution of bloody vengeance, undeterred by the supposed sanctity of the clerical character, or by the stronger claims of natural affection. Choosing, therefore, a dark and windy night, when the objects of his vengeance were engaged in a stolen interview, he set fire to a stack of dried thorns, and other combustibles, which he had caused to be piled against the house, and reduced to a pile of glowing ashes the dwelling, with all its inmates. He The scene with which the ballad opens, was suggested by the following curious passage, extracted from the Life of Alexander Peden, one of the wandering and persecuted teachers of the sect of Cameronians, during the reign of Charles II, and his successor, James. This person was supposed by his followers, and, perhaps, really believed himself, to be possessed of supernatural gifts; for the wild scenes which they frequented, and the constant dangers which were incurred through their proscription, deepened upon their minds the gloom of superstition, so general in that age. "About the same time he [Peden] came to Andrew Normand's house, in the parish of Alloway, in the shire of Ayr, being to preach at night in his barn. Afte he came in, he halted a little, leaning upon a chair-back, with his face covered; when he lifted up his head, he said, 'They are in this house that I have not o word of salvation unto;' he halted a little again, saying, 'This is strange, that t devil will not go out, that we may begin our work! Then there was a won went out, ill-looked upon almost all her life, and to her dying hour, for a with with many presumptions of the same. It escaped me, in the former passages, whi John Muirhead (whom I have often mentioned) told me, that when he came trum Ireland to Galloway, he was at family-worship, and giving some notes upon th Scripture read, when a very ill-looking man came, and sat down within the doct at the back of the hallan, [partition of the cottage:] immediately he halted and said, 'There is some unhappy body just now come into this house. I charge h to go out, and not stop my mouth!' This person went out, and he insisted wet on, yet he saw him neither come in nor go out."-The Life and Prophecia Mr. Alexander Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at New Glenluce, in Galleon, part ii. § 26. A friendly correspondent remarks, "that the incapacity of proceeding in the performance of a religious duty, when a contaminated person is present, is of m higher antiquity than the era of the Reverend Mr. Alexander Peden." Vide Hy Fabulas, cap. 26. "Medca Corintho exul, Athenas, ad Ægeum Pandions a devenit in hospitium, eique nupsit. "Postea sacerdos Diana Medeam exagitare cœpit, regique negabat caste facere posse, eo quod in ea civitate esset mulier venefica et scelerata, exulatur." THE Pope he was saying the high, high mass, All on Saint Peter's day, With the power to him given, by the saints in heaven, To wash men's sins away. The Pope he was saying the blessed mass, 'As he kiss'd the holy ground. The holy accents rung. At the holiest word he quiver'd for fear, Pollutes our sacred day; "A being, whom no blessed word I charge thee not to stop my voice. I ween he had not spoke, Seem'd none more bent to pray; His unblest feet his native seat, 'Mid Eske's fair woods, regain; Thro' woods more fair no stream more sweet Rolls to the eastern main. And lords to meet the pilgrim came, And vassals bent the knee; And boldly for his country, still, Ay, even when on the banks of Till Impervious to the sun. There the rapt poet's step may rove, From that fair dome, where suit is paid, To Auchendinny's hazel glade, And haunted Woodhouselee. Who knows not Melville's beechy grove, And Roslin's rocky glen, Dalkeith, which all the virtues love, And classic Hawthornden? Yet never a path, from day to day, To Burndale's ruin'd grange. A woful place was that, I ween, For nodding to the fall was each crumbling wall, And the roof was scathed with fire. It fell upon a summer's eve, While, on Carnethy's head, The last faint gleams of the sun's low beams Had streak'd the grey with red; And the convent bell did vespers tell, Newbattle's oaks among, The heavy knell, the choir's faint swell, Came slowly down the wind, And on the pilgrim's ear they fell, As his wonted path he did find. Until he came to that dreary place, He gazed on the walls, so scathed with fire, With many a bitter groanAnd there was aware of a Gray Friar, Resting him on a stone. "Now, Christ thee save!" said the Gray Brother; Some pilgrim thou seemest to be." But in sore amaze did Lord Albert gaze, Nor answer again made he. "O come ye from east, or come ye from west, Or bring reliques from over the sea; Or come ye from the shrine of St. James the divine, Or St. John of Beverley?" "I come not from the shrine of St. James the divine, Nor bring reliques from over the sea; I bring but a curse from our father, the Pope, Which for ever will cling to me." Now, woful pilgrim, say not so! And shrive thee so clean of thy deadly sin, That absolved thou mayst be." And who art thou, thou Gray Brother, That I should shrive to thee, When He, to whom are given the keys of earth and heaven, |