Sound sleeps our seer, far from the day,

Beneath yon sleek and wreathed cone!

His spirit steals, unmissed, away,

And dreams across the desert lone.

Sound sleeps our seer! the tempests rave,
And cold sheets o'er his bosom fling;
The moldwarp digs his mossy grave;
His requiem Avin eagles sing.

Why howls the fox above yon wreath, That mocks the blazing Summer sun?

Why croaks the sable bird of death,

As hovering o'er yon desert dun?

When circling years have past away,

And Summer blooms in Avin glen, Why stands yon peasant in dismay,

Still gazing o'er the bloated den?

г

Green grows the grass ! the bones are white! Not bones of mountain stag they seem! There hooted once the owl by night,

Above the dead-light's lambent beam!

See yon lone cairn, so gray with age,
Above the base of proud Cairn-Gorm :

There lies the dust of Avin's sage,

Who raised the Spirit of the Storm,

Yet still at eve, or midnight drear,

When Wintry winds begin to sweep, When passing shrieks assail thine ear,

Or murmurs by the mountain steep;

When from the dark and sedgy dells

Came eldrich cries of wildered men, Or wind-harp at thy window swells,Beware the sprite of Avin-Glen!

I

Young Farquhar ceased, and, rising slow, Doffed his plumed bonnet, wiped his brow,

And flushed with conscious dignity,

Cast o'er the crowd his falcon eye,
And found them all in silence deep,
As listening for the tempest's sweep.

So well his tale of Avin's seer

Suited the rigour of the

year;

So high his strain, so bold his lyre,

So fraught with rays of Celtic fire,

They almost weened each hum that past

The spirit of the northern blast.

The next was named,-the very sound Excited merriment around.

But when the bard himself appeared,

The ladies smiled, the courtiers sncered;

For such a simple air and mien

Before a court had never been.

A clown he was, bred in the wild,
And late from native moors exiled,

In hopes his mellow mountain strain

High favour from the great would gain.
Poor wight! he never weened how hard
For poverty to earn regard!
Dejection o'er his visage ran,

His coat was bare, his colour wań,
His forest doublet darned and torn,
His shepherd plaid all rent and worn;
Yet dear the symbols to his eye,
Memorials of a time gone bye.

The bard on Ettrick's mountain green

In Nature's bosom nursed had been,
And oft had marked in forest lone
Her beauties on her mountain throne;
Had seen her deck the wild-wood tree,
And star with snowy gems the lea;
In loveliest colours paint the plain,
And sow the moor with purple grain;
By golden mead and mountain sheer,
Had viewed the Ettrick waving clear,

Where shadowy flocks of purest snow

Seemed grazing in a world below.

Instead of Ocean's billowy pride, Where monsters play and navies ride, Oft had he viewed, as morning rose, The bosom of the lonely Lowes, Plowed far by many a downy keel, Of wild-duck and of vagrant teal. Oft thrilled his heart at close of even, To see the dappled vales of heaven, With many a mountain, moor, and tree, Asleep upon the St Mary; The pilot swan majestic wind, With all his cygnet fleet behind, So softly sail, and swiftly row, With sable oar and silken prow. Instead of war's unhallowed form, His

eye had seen the thunder-storm Descend within the mountain's brim,

And shroud him in its chambers grim ;