That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature!

TO THE SAME FLOWER.

BRIGHT flower, whose home is everywhere!
A pilgrim bold in Nature's care,

And all the long year through the heir
Of joy or sorrow,

Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,

Given to no other flower I see
The forest thorough!

Is it that man is soon depressed?
A thoughtless thing! who, once unblest,
Does little on his memory rest,

Or on his reason;

But thou wouldst teach him how to find
A shelter under every wind,

A hope for times that are unkind
And every season.

Thou wander'st the wide world about,
Unchecked by pride or scrupulous doubt,
With friends to greet thee, or without,
Yet pleased and willing;

Meek, yielding to the occasion's call,
And all things suffering from all,
Thy function apostolical

In peace fulfilling.

U 2

TO A SEXTON.

LET thy wheelbarrow alone-
Wherefore, sexton piling still
In thy bone-house bone on bone?
'Tis already like a hill

In a field of battle made,

Where three thousand skulls are laid;

These died in peace each with the other,
Father, sister, friend, and brother.

Mark the spot to which I point!
From this platform, eight feet square,

Take not even a finger joint:

Andrew's whole fireside is there.

Here, alone, before thine eyes,

Simon's sickly daughter lies,

From weakness now, and pain defended,
Whom he twenty winters tended.

Look but at the gardener's pride-
How he glories, when he sees
Roses, lilies, side by side,
Violets in families!

By the heart of man, his tears,
By his hopes and by his fears,
Thou, old greybeard, art the warden
Of a far superior garden.

Thus then, each to other dear,

Let them all in quiet lie,

Andrew there, and Susan here,

Neighbours in mortality.

And, should I live through sun and rain
Seven widowed years without my Jane,
O sexton, do not then remove her,
Let one grave hold the loved and lover.

THE SEVEN SISTERS;

OR, THE SOLITUDE OF BINNORIE. SEVEN daughters had Lord Archibald, All children of one mother:

I could not say in one short day
What love they bore each other.
A garland of seven lilies wrought!
Seven sisters that together dwell;
But he, bold knight as ever fought,
Their father, took of them no thought,
He loved the wars so well.

Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully,
The solitude of Binnorie!

Fresh blows the wind, a western wind,
And from the shores of Erin,

Across the wave, a rover brave
To Binnorie is steering:

Right onward to the Scottish strand

The gallant ship is borne;

The warriors leap upon the land,

And hark! the leader of the band
Hath blown his bugle horn.

Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully,
The solitude of Binnorie.

Beside a grotto of their own,
With boughs above them closing,
The seven are laid, and in the shade
They lie like fawns reposing.
But now, upstarting with affright
At noise of man and steed,
Away they fly, to left, to right-

Of your fair household, father knight,
Methinks you take small heed!
Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully,
The solitude of Binnorie.

Away the seven fair Campbells fly,

And, over hill and hollow,

With menace proud, and insult loud,

The youthful rovers follow.

Cried they, "Your father loves to roam:
Enough for him to find

The empty house when he comes home;
For us your yellow ringlets comb,
For us be fair and kind!"

Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully,
The solitude of Binnorie.

Some close behind, some side by side,
Like clouds in stormy weather,

They run, and cry, "Nay let us die,
And let us die together."

A lake was near; the shore was steep;
There never foot had been;

They ran, and with a desperate leap
Together plunged into the deep,
Nor ever more were seen.

Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully,
The solitude of Binnorie.

The stream that flows out of the lake, As through the glen it rambles, Repeats a moan o'er moss and stone, For those seven lovely Campbells. Seven little islands, green and bare, Have risen from out the deep:

The fishers say, those sisters fair
By fairies are all buried there,
And there together sleep.

Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully,
The solitude of Binnorie.

A FRAGMENT.

BETWEEN two sister moorland rills
There is a spot that seems to lie
Sacred to flowerets of the hills,
And sacred to the sky.

And in this smooth and open dell
There is a tempest-stricken tree;
A corner-stone by lightning cut,
The last stone of a cottage hut;
And in this dell you see

A thing no storm can e'er destroy,
The shadow of a Danish boy.*

In clouds above, the lark is heard,
But drops not here to earth for rest:
Within this nook the lonesome bird
Did never build her nest.

No beast, no bird hath here his home;
Bees, wafted on the breezy air,
Pass high above those fragrant bells
To other flowers; to other dells

Their burthens do they bear:

The Danish boy walks here alone;

The lovely dell is all his own.

* A Danish prince who had fled from battle was, for the sake of his valuables, murdered by the inhabitants of a cottage in which he had taken refuge. The spirit of the youth was believed to haunt the valley.