I little thought, when first I tried

Thy notes by lone Saint Mary's side,
Whon m a deep untrodden den,

I found thee in the braken glen,

I little thought that idle toy
Should e'er become my only joy!

A maiden's youthful smiles had wove
Around my heart the toils of love,
When first thy magic wires I rung,
And on the breeze thy numbers flung.
The fervid tear played in mine eye;
I trembled, wept, and wondered why.
Sweet was the thrilling ecstacy:

I know not if 'twas love or thee.

Weened not my heart, when youth had flown Friendship would fade, or fortune frown; When pleasure, love, and mirth were past, That thou should'st prove my all at last!

Jeered by conceit and lordly pride,
I flung my soothing harp aside;

With wayward fortune strove a while;
Wrecked in a world of self and guile.
Again I sought the braken hill;
Again sat musing by the rill;

My wild sensations all were gone,
And only thou wert left alone.

Long hast thou in the moorland lain,
Now welcome to my heart again.

The russet weed of mountain gray

No more shall round thy border play;
No more the brake-flowers, o'er thee piled,

Shall mar thy tones and measures wild.

Harp of the Forest, thou shalt be

Fair as the bud on forest tree!

Sweet be thy strains, as those that swell
In Ettrick's green and fairy dell;

Soft as the breeze of falling even,

And purer

than the dews of heaven.

Of minstrel honours, now no more;

Of bards, who sung in days of yore;
Of gallant chiefs, in courtly guise;

Of ladies' smiles, of ladies' eyes;
Of royal feast and obsequies;
When Caledon, with look severe,
Saw Beauty's hand her sceptre bear,-
By cliff and haunted wild I'll sing,
Responsive to thy dulcet string.

When wanes the circling year away,

When scarcely smiles the doubtful day,
Fair daughter of Dunedin, say,

Hast thou not heard, at midnight deep,
Soft music on thy slumbers creep?
At such a time, if careless thrown
Thy slender form on couch of down,
Hast thou not felt, to nature true,
The tear steal from thine eye so blue?
If then thy guiltless bosom strove
In blissful dreams of conscious love,

And even shrunk from proffer bland
Of lover's visionary hand,

On such ecstatic dream when brake

The music of the midnight Wake,
Hast thou not weened thyself on high,
List'ning to angels' melody,

'Scaped from a world of cares away,
To dream of love and bliss for aye?

The dream dispelled, the music gone, Hast thou not, sighing, all alone, Proffered thy vows to Heaven, and then Blest the sweet Wake, and slept again?

Then list, ye maidens, to my lay,

Though old the tale, and past the day;

Those Wakes, now played by minstrels poor,

At midnight's darkest, chillest hour,

Those humble Wakes, now scorned by all,

Were first begun in courtly hall,

When royal MARY, blithe of mood,

Kept holiday at Holyrood.

Scotland, involved in factious broils,
Groaned deep beneath her woes and toils,
And looked o'er meadow, dale, and lea,
For many a day her Queen to see;

Hoping that then her woes would cease,
And all her vallies smile in peace.

The Spring was past, the Summer gone;
Still vacant stood the Scottish throne:

But scarce had Autumn's mellow hand
Waved her rich banner o'er the land,
When rang the shouts, from tower and tree,

That Scotland's Queen was on the sea.

Swift spread the news o'er down and dale, Swift as the lively autumn gale;

Away, away, it echoed still,

O'er many a moor and Highland hill,

Till rang each glen and verdant plain,
From Cheviot to the northern main.