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In gray Glenfinlas' deepest nook
The solitary cabin stood,
Fast by Moneira's sullen brook,

Which murmurs through that lonely wood.

Soft fell the night, the sky was calm, When three successive days had flown; And summer mist in dewy balm

Steep'd heathy bank, and mossy stone.

The moon, half-hid in silvery flakes, Afar her dubious radiance shed, Quivering on Katrine's distant lakes, And resting on Benledi's head.

Now in their hut, in social guise,

Their sylvan fare the chiefs enjoy; And pleasure laughs in Ronald's eye, As many a pledge he quaffs to Moy. -What lack we here to crown our bliss,

While thus the pulse of joy beats high? What, but fair woman's yielding kiss,

Her panting breath, and melting eye?

«To chase the deer of yonder shades, This morning left their father's pile The fairest of our mountain maids,

The daughters of the proud Glengyle.

« Long have I sought sweet Mary's heart, And dropp'd the tear, and heaved the sigh: But vain the lover's wily art,

Beneath a sister's watchful eye.

« But thou mayst teach that guardian fair, While far with Mary I am flown,

Of other hearts to cease her care,

And find it hard to guard her own.

«Touch but thy harp, thou soon shalt see The lovely Flora of Glengyle, Unmindful of her charge and me,

Hang on thy notes, 'twixt tear and smile.

« Or, if she chuse a melting tale,

All underneath the green-wood bough, Will good St Oran's rule prevail, (4) Stern huntsman of the rigid brow?»

- Since Enrick's fight, since Morna's death,
No more on me shall rapture rise,
Responsive to the panting breath,
Or yielding kiss, or melting eyes.

« E'en then, when o'er the heath of woe,
Where sunk my hopes of love and fame,
I bade my harp's wild wailings flow,
On me the seer's sad spirit came.

«The last dread curse of angry Heaven,

With ghastly sights and sounds of woe, To dash each glimpse of joy, was given— The gift, the future ill to know.

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"Not so, by high Dunlathmon's fire, Thy heart was froze to love and joy, When gaily rung thy raptured lyre, To wanton Morna's melting eye.»>

Wild stared the minstrel's eye of flame,
And high his sable locks arose,
And quick his colour went and came,
As fear and rage alternate rose.

« And thou! when by the blazing oak I lay, to her and love resign'd, Say, rode ye on the eddying smoke,

Or sail'd ye on the midnight wind?

« Not thine a race of mortal blood, Nor old Glengyle's pretended line; Thy dame, the Lady of the Flood,

Thy sire, the Monarch of the Mine.>>

He mutter'd thrice St Oran's rhyme,

And thrice St Fillan's powerful prayer; (5) Then turn'd him to the eastern clime, And sternly shook his coal-black hair.

And, bending o'er his harp, he flung

His wildest witch-notes on the wind; And loud, and high, and strange, they rung, As many a magic change they find.

Tall wax'd the Spirit's altering form,

Till to the roof her stature grew; Then, mingling with the rising storm, With one wild yell, away she flew.

Rain beats, hail rattles, whirlwinds tear:
The slender hut in fragments flew;
But not a lock of Moy's loose hair
Was waved by wind, or wet by dew.

Wild mingling with the howling gale,

Loud bursts of ghastly laughter rise; High o'er the minstrel's head they sail, And die amid the northern skies.

The voice of thunder shook the wood, As ceased the more than mortal yell; And, spattering foul, a shower of blood Upon the hissing firebrands fell.

Next, dropp'd from high a mangled arm;

The fingers strain'd a half-drawn blade; And last, the life-blood streaming warm,

Torn from the trunk, a gasping head.

Oft o'er that head, in battling field,

Stream'd the proud crest of high Benmore; That arm the broad claymore could wield, Which dyed the Teith with Saxon gore.

Woe to Moneira's sullen rills!

Woe to Glenfinlas' dreary glen!

There never son of Albyn's hills

Shall draw the hunter's shaft agen!

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Note 3. Stanza vii.

The seer's prophetic spirit found, etc.

I can only describe the second sight, by adopting Dr Johnson's definition, who calls it « an impression, either by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant and future are perceived and seen as if they were present.» To which I would only add, that the spectral appearances, thus presented, usually presage misfortune; that the faculty is painful to those who suppose they possess it; and that they usually acquire it, while themselves under the pressure of melancholy.

Note 4. Stanza xxii.

Will good St Oran's rule prevail.

St Oran was a friend and follower of St Columba, and was buried in Icolmkill. His pretensions to be a saint were rather dubious. According to the legend, he consented to be buried alive, in order to propitiate certain demons of the soil, who obstructed the attempts of Columba to build a chapel. Columba caused the body of his friend to be dug up, after three days had elapsed; when Oran, to the horror and scandal of the assistants, declared, that there was neither a God, a judgment, nor a future state! He had no time to make further discoveries, for Columba caused the earth once more to be shovelled over him with the utmost dispatch. The chapel, however, and the cemetery, was called Reilig Ouran; and, in memory of his rigid celibacy, no female was permitted to pay her devotions, or be buried, in that place. This is the rule alluded to in t le poem.

Note 5. Stanza lv.

And thrice St Fillan's powerful prayer. St Fillan has given his name to many chapels, holy

fountains, etc. in Scotland. He was, according to Camerarius, an abbot of Pittenweem, in Fife, from which situation he retired, and died a hermit in the wilds of Glenurchy, A. D. 649. While engaged in transcribing the Scriptures, his left hand was observed to send forth such a splendour, as to afford light to that with which he wrote; a miracle which saved many candles to the convent, as St Fillan used to spend whole nights in that exercise. The 9th of January was dedicated to this saint, who gave his name to Kilfillan, in Renfrew, and St Phillans, or Forgend, in Fife. Lesley, lib. 7, tells us, that Robert the Bruce was possessed of Fillan's miraculous and luminous arm, which he inclosed in a silver shrine, and had it carried at the head of his army. Previous to the battle of Bannockburn, the king's chap

lain, a man of little faith, abstracted the relic, and deposited it in some place of security, lest it should fall into the hands of the English. But, lo! while Robert was addressing his prayers to the empty casket, it was observed to open and shut suddenly; and, on inspection, the saint was found to have himself deposited his arm in the shrine, as an assurance of victory. Such is the tale of Lesley. But though Bruce little needed that the arm of St Fillan should assist his own, he dedicated to him, in gratitude, a priory at Killin, upon Loch Tay.

In the Scots Magazine for July, 1802 (a national periodical publication, which has lately revived with considerable energy), there is a copy of a very curious crown-grant, dated 11th July, 1487, by which James III confirms to Malice Doire, an inhabitant of Strathfillan, in Perthshire, the peaceable exercise and enjoyment of a relic of St Fillan, called the Quegrich, which he, and his predecessors, are said to have possessed since the days of Robert Bruce. As the Quegrich was used to cure diseases, this document is, probably, the most ancient patent ever granted for a quack medicine. The ingenious correspondent, by whom it is furnished, further observes, that additional particulars concerning St Fillan are to be found in BALLENDEN'S Boece, Book 4, folio ccxiii, and in PENNANT'S Tour in Scotland, 1772, Pp. 11, 15.

THE EVE OF SAINT JOHN.

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<< Come thou hither, my little foot-page;
Come hither to my knee;

Though thou art young, and tender of age,
I think thou art true to me.

<< Come, tell me all that thou hast seen,
And look thou tell me true!
Since 1 from Smaylho'me tower have been,
What did thy lady do?»

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My lady, each night, sought the lonely light,
That burns on the wild Watchfold;

For, from height to height, the beacons bright
Of the English foemen told.

SMAYLHO ME, or Smallholm Tower, the scene of the fol-
lowing ballad, is situated on the northern boundary of
Roxburghshire, among a cluster of wild rocks, called
Sandiknow Crags, the property of Hugh Scott, Esq. of
Harden. The tower is a high square building, surround-
ed by an outer wall, now ruinous. The circuit of the
outer court, being defended, on three sides, by a pre-
cipice and morass, is accessible only from the west, by
a steep and rocky path. The apartments, as is usual in
a Border keep, or fortress, are placed one above another,
and communicate by a narrow stair; on the roof are
two bartizans, or platforms, for defence or pleasure.
The inner door of the tower is wood, the outer an iron
grate; the distance between them being nine feet, the
thickness, namely, of the wall. From the elevated si-Yet the craggy pathway she did cross,
tuation of Smaylho'me Tower, it is seen many miles in
every direction. Among the crags, by which it is sur-
rounded, one, more eminent, is called The Watchfold;
and is said to have been the station of a beacon, in the
times of war with England. Without the tower-court

« The bittern clamour'd from the moss,
The wind blew loud and shrill;

To the eiry beacon hill.

The plate-jack is coat-armour; the vaunt-brace, or wambrace, | armour for the body; the sperthe, a battle-ase.

2 See an account of the battle of Ancram Moor, subjoined to the ballad.

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<<'At the lone midnight hour, when bad spirits have

power,

'In thy chamber wil! I be.'—

With that he was gone, and my lady left alone,

And no more did I sec.»

Then changed, I trow, was that bold baron's brow, From the dark to the blood-red high;

«Now tell me the mien of the knight thou hast seen, For, by Mary, he shall die!»

<«<His arms shone full bright in the beacon's red light, His plume it was scarlet and blue;

On his shield was a hound, in a silver leash bound, And his crest was a branch of the yew,»

«Thou liest, thou liest, thou little foot-page, Loud dost thou lie to me!

For that knight is cold, and low laid in the mould, All under the Eildon-tree.>>

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'Yet there sleepeth a priest in the chamber to the That lady sat in mournful mood;

east,

'And my footstep he would know.'

«O fear not the priest, who sleepeth tothe east! 'For to Dryburgh' the way he has ta'en; 'And there to say mass, till three days do pass, 'For the soul of a knight that is slayne.'

« He turn'd him round, and grimly he frown'd; Then he laugh'd right scornfully

"He who says the mass-rite for the soul of that knight 'May as well say mass for me.

The black rood of Melrose was a crucifix of black marble, and of superior sanctity.

Dryburgh Abbey is beautifully situated on the banks of the Tweed. After its dissolation, it became the property of the Haliburtons of Newmains, and is now the seat of the right honourable the Earl of Buchan. I belonged to the order of Premonstratenses.

Look'd over hil! and dale;

Over Tweed's fair flood, and Mertoun's wood,

And all down Teviotdale.

«Now hail, now hail, thou lady bright!» « Now hail, thou baron true!

What news, what news, from Ancram fight? What news from the bold Buccleuch ?»

The Ancram Moor is red with gore
For many a southern fell;

And Buccleuch has charged us, evermore,
To watch our beacons well.»>

Eildon is a high hill, terminating in three conical summits, immediately above the town of Melrose, where are the admired ruins of a magnificent monastery. Eildon-tree is said to be the spot where Thomas the Rhymer uttered his prophecies.

* Mertoon is the beautiful seat of Hugh Scott, Esq. of Harden.

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