Ye houiets, frae your ivy bower,
In some auld tree, or eldritch tower,
What time the moon, wi' silent glower,
Sets up her horn,
Wail through the dreary midnight hour
Till waukrife morn!
O rivers, forests, hills, and plains!
Oft have ye heard my canty strains:
But now, what else for me remains
But tales of woe?
And frae my e'en the drapping rains
Maun ever flow.
Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year!
Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear:
Thou Simmer, while each corny spear
Shoots up its head,
Thy gay, green, flowery tresses shear
For him that's dead!
Thou, Autumn, wi' thy yellow hair,
In grief thy swallow mantle tear!
Thou, Winter, hurling through the air
The roaring blast,
Wide o'er the naked world declare
The worth we've lost!
Mourn him, thou Sun, great source of light!
Mourn, Empress of the silent night!
And you, ye twinkling Starnies bright,
My Matthew mourn!
For through your orbs he's ta'en his flight.
Ne'er to return.
O Henderson! the man! the brother!
And art thou gone, and gone for ever?
And hast thou crossed that unknown river,
Life's dreary bound?
Like thee, where shall I find another,
The world around?
Go to your sculptured tombs, ye great,
In a' the tinsel trash o' state!
But by thy honest turf I'll wait,
Thou man of worth!
And weep the ae best fellow's fate
E'er lay in earth.
ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796).
THE MINSTREL'S ROUNDELAY.
Oн sing unto my roundelay,
Oh drop the briny tear with me,
Dance no more on holiday;
Like a running river be.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
Black his hair as the winter night,
White his skin as the summer snow,
Red his face as the morning light,
Cold he lies in the grave below.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note, Quick in dance as thought can be,
Deft his tabor, cudgel stout;
Oh! he lies by the willow-tree.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
Hark! the raven flaps his wing,
In the briar'd dell below;
Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing
To the nightmares, as they go.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
See! the white moon shines on high; Whiter is my true-love's shroud,
Whiter than the morning sky,
Whiter than the evening cloud.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
Here upon my true-love's grave,
Shall the barren flowers be laid;
Not one holy saint to save
All the coldness of a maid.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
With my hands I'll fix the briars,
Round his holy corse to gre,
Elfin fairies, light your fires,
Here my body still shall be.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
Come with acorn-cup and thorn,
Drain my heart's blood all away;
Life and all its good I scorn,
Dance by night or feast by day.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
Water-witches, crowned with reytes,
Bear me to your lethal tide.
I die! I come! my true love waits, -
Thus the damsel spake, and died.
THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752-1770).
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,
Go forth under the open sky and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice: Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go.
To mix forever with the elements
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain
Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste-
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