Cave of YE shadowy Beings, that have rights and claims
Staffa In every cell of Fingal's mystic Grot,

your

Where are ye? Driven or venturing to the spot,
Our fathers glimpses caught of thin Frames,
And, by your mien and bearing, knew your names;
And they could hear his ghostly song who trod
Earth, till the flesh lay on him like a load,
While he struck his desolate harp without hopes
or aims.

Vanished ye are, but subject to recall;

Why keep we else the instincts whose dread law
Ruled here of yore, till what men felt they saw,
Not by black arts but magic natural!

If

eyes be still sworn vassals of belief,

Yon light shapes forth a Bard, that shade a Chief.

Flowers at HOPE smiled when your nativity was cast, the Entrance Children of Summer! Yefresh Flowers that brave of the Cave What Summer here escapes not, the fierce wave, And whole artillery of the western blast,

Battering the Temple's front, its long-drawn nave
Smiting, as if each moment were their last.
But ye, bright Flowers, on frieze and architrave
Survive, and once again the Pile stands fast:
Calm as the Universe, from specular towers
Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure
With mute astonishment, it stands sustained
Through every part in symmetry, to endure,
Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours,
As the supreme Artificer ordained.

ON to Iona!-What can she afford

Iona

To us save matter for a thoughtful sigh,
Heaved over ruin with stability

In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's
Lord)

Her Temples rose, 'mid pagan gloom; but why,
Even for a moment, has our verse deplored
Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny?
And when, subjected to a common doom
Of mutability, those far-famed Piles
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles,
Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their praise.

To each voyager

up

for sale a store

Iona (upon
Landing)

Some ragged child holds

Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore
Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir,
Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer.
Yet is yon neat trim church a grateful speck
Of novelty amid the sacred wreck

Strewn far and wide. Think, proud Philosopher!
Fallen though she be, this Glory of the West,
Still on her sons the beams of mercy
shine;
And "hopes, perhaps more heavenly bright than
thine,

A grace by thee unsought and unpossest,
A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest.”

The Black HERE on their knees men swore: the stones were Stones of

black,

Iona Black in the people's minds and words, yet they
Were at that time, as now, in colour grey.

But what is colour, if upon the rack

Of conscience souls are placed by deeds that lack
Concord with oaths? What differ night and day
Then, when before the Perjured on his way
Hell opens, and the heavens in vengeance crack
Above his head uplifted in vain prayer

To Saint, or Fiend, or to the Godhead whom
He had insulted-Peasant, King, or Thane ?
Fly where the culprit may, guilt meets a doom;
And, from invisible worlds at need laid bare,
Come links for social order's awful chain.

Homeward HOMEWARD We turn. Isle of Columba's Cell,
we turn Where Christian piety's soul-cheering spark
(Kindled from Heaven between the light and dark
Of time) shone like the morning-star, farewell!
And fare thee well, to Fancy visible,
Remote St Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark
For many a voyage made in her swift bark,
When with more hues than in the rainbow dwell
Thou a mysterious intercourse dost hold,
Extracting from clear skies and air serene,
And out of sun-bright waves, a lucid veil,
That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with fold,
Makes known, when thou no longer canst be seen,
Thy whereabout, to warn the approaching sail.

WE have not passed into a doleful City,
We who were led to-day down a grim dell,
By some too boldly named "the Jaws of Hell"
Where be the wretched ones, the sights for pity?
These crowded streets resound no plaintive ditty:-
As from the hive where bees in summer dwell,
Sorrow seems here excluded; and that knell,
It neither damps the gay, nor checks the witty.
Alas! too busy Rival of old Tyre,

Whose merchants Princes were, whose decks were
thrones;

Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire

To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde
Whose nursling current brawls o'er mossy stones,
The poor, the lonely, herdsman's joy and pride.

Greenock

"THERE!" said a Stripling, pointing with meet pride Mosgiel
Towards a low roof with green trees half concealed, Farm
"Is Mosgiel Farm; and that's the very field
Where Burnsploughed up the Daisy." Far and wide
A plain below stretched seaward, while, descried
Above sea-clouds, the Peaks of Arran rose;
And, by that simple notice, the repose
Of earth, sky, sea, and air, was vivified.
Beneath "the random bield of clod or stone"
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the One
That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.

M

The River EDEN! till now thy beauty had I viewed Eden, By glimpses only, and confess with shame Cumberland That verse of mine, whate'er its varying mood,

Nollekens,

Repeats but once the sound of thy sweet name:
Yet fetched from Paradise that honour came,
Rightfully borne; for Nature gives thee flowers
That have no rivals among British bowers;
And thy bold rocks are worthy of their fame.
Measuring thy course, fair Stream! at length I pay
To my life's neighbour dues of neighbourhood;
But I have traced thee on thy winding way
With pleasure sometimes by this thought re-
strained-

For things far off we toil, while many a good
Not sought, because too near, is never gained.

Monument STRETCHED on the dying Mother's lap, lies dead of Mrs Her new-born Babe; dire ending of bright hope! Howard, by But Sculpture here, with the divinest scope in Wetheral Ofluminous faith, heavenward hath raised that head Church So patiently; and through one hand has spread A touch so tender for the insensate Child

(Earth's lingering love to parting reconciled,
Brief parting, for the spirit is all but fled) —
That we, who contemplate the turns of life
Through this still medium, are consoled and
cheered;

Feel with the Mother, think the severed Wife
Is less to be lamented than revered;

And own that Art, triumphant over strife
And pain, hath powers to Eternity endeared.