And all, among the crowded throng,

Was still, both limb and tongue,

While through vaulted roof, and aisles aloof,

The holy accents rung.

At the holiest word he quiver'd for fear,

And falter'd in the sound

And, when he would the chalice rear,
He dropp'd it on the ground.

"The breath of one, of evil deed,

Pollutes our sacred day;

He has no portion in our creed,

No part in what I say.

"A being, whom no blessed word

To ghostly peace can bring;

A wretch, at whose approach abhorr'd,

Recoils each holy thing.

"Up, up, unhappy! haste, arise!

My adjuration fear!

I charge thee not to stop my voice,

No longer tarry here!"—

Amid them all a Pilgrim kneel'd,
In gown of sackcloth gray;

Far journeying from his native field,
He first saw Rome that day.

For forty days and nights so drear,
I ween, he had not spoke,

And, save with bread and water clear,

His fast he ne'er had broke.

Amid the penitential flock,

Seem'd none more bent to pray;

But, when the Holy Father spoke,

He rose, and went his way.

Again unto his native land

His weary course he drew,

To Lothian's fair and fertile strand,

And Pentland's mountains blue.

His unblest feet his native seat,

Mid Esk's fair woods, regain;

Through woods more fair no stream more sweet

Rolls to the eastern main.

And lords to meet the Pilgrim came,

And vassals bent the knee;

For all mid Scotland's chiefs of fame,

Was none more famed than he.

And boldly for his country still,

In battle he had stood,

Ay, even when, on the banks of Till,

Her noblest pour'd their blood.

Sweet are the paths, O passing sweet!

By Eske's fair streams that run,

O'er airy steep, through copsewood deep,

Impervious to the sun.

There the rapt poet's step may rove,

And yield the muse the day;

There Beauty, led by timid Love,
May shun the tell-tale ray;

From that fair dome, where suit is paid,

By blast of bugle free,

To Auchendinny's hazel glade,

And haunted Woodhouslee.

Who knows not Melville's beechy grove,

And Roslin's rocky glen,

Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,

And classic Hawthornden?

VOL. III.

R

9

Yet never a path, from day to day,

The Pilgrim's footsteps range,

Save but the solitary way

To Burndale's ruin'd Grange.

A woeful place was that, I ween,

As sorrow could desire;

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,

And mingled with the solemn knell

Our Ladye's evening song ;