THE

GREY BROTHER.

THE Pope he was saying the high, high mass,

All on Saint Peter's day,

With the power to him given, by the saints in

heaven,

To wash men's sins away.

The Pope he was saying the blessed mass,

And the people kneel❜d around;

And from each man's soul his sins did pass,
As he kiss'd the holy ground.

VOL. III.

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 faulter'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.

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Up, up, unhappy! haste, arise!

My adjuration fear !

I charge thee not to stop my voice,

Nor 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 Eske'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 Woodhouselee.

Who knows not Melville's beechy grove,

And Roslin's rocky glen,

Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,

And classic Hawthornden?