174 5 And when we came to Clovenford, "Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town, On Yarrow's banks let herons feed, "There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs, And Dryborough, where with chiming Tweed There's pleasant Tiviot-dale, a land 25" What's Yarrow but a river bare, That glides the dark hills under? There are a thousand such elsewhere, Strange words they seemed of slight and scorn! 30 My true-love sighed for sorrow; And looked me in the face, to think I thus could speak of Yarrow! 9. Frae. Scottish for from. "Oh, green," said I, "are Yarrow's holms, And sweet is Yarrow flowing! 35 Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, But we will leave it growing. "Let beeves and homebred kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; The swan on still St. Mary's Lake Float double, swan and shadow! 45 We will not see them; will not go To-day, nor yet to-morrow; Enough, if in our hearts we know There's such a place as Yarrow. "Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown! 50 It must, or we shall rue it: We have a vision of our own; Ah! why should we undo it? The treasured dreams of times long past, We'll keep them, winsome Marrow! 55 For when we 're there, although 't is fair, 'T will be another Yarrow! "If care with freezing years should come, And wandering seem but folly, Should we be loth to stir from home, 60 And yet be melancholy, Should life be dull, and spirits low, STEPPING WESTWARD. While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sunset, in our road to a hut where, in the course of our tour, we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What, you are stepping westward?" "What, you are stepping westward?"-" Yea." -'T would be a wildish destiny, If we, who thus together roam In a strange land, and far from home, 5 Were in this place the guests of chance: The dewy ground was dark and cold; I liked the greeting; 't was a sound The voice was soft, and she who spake 20 The very sound of courtesy: Its power was felt; and while my eye The echo of the voice inwrought A human sweetness with the thought SONNET, COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. EARTH has not anything to show more fair: This City now doth, like a garment, wear All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. TO SLEEP. A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by, One after one; the sound of rain, and bees Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky; 5 I have thought of all by turns, and yet to lie Sleepless! and soon the small birds' melodies Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees; And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry. 178 Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay, 10 And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth; So do not let me wear to-night away: Without thee what is all the morning's wealth? IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE. It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, Breathless with adoration; the broad sun 5 The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea. And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder —everlastingly. Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here, Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; EXTEMPORE EFFUSION UPON THE DEATH WHEN first, descending from the moorlands, The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide. 4. James Hogg was a shepherd in the Vale of Ettrick, who had a slight but genuine poetic gift. He was a friend of Walter Scott's |