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'Tis true, the gay attentive throng

Admired, but loved not much, his

song;

Admired his wonderous voice and skill,

His harp that thrilled or wept at will.
But that affected gaudy rhyme,

The querulous keys and changing chime,

Scarce could the Highland chieftain brook :

Disdain seemed kindling in his look,

That song so vapid, artful, terse,

Should e'er compete with Scottish verse.

But she, the fairest of the fair, Who sat enthroned in gilded chair, Well skilled in foreign minstrelsy And artful airs of Italy,

Listened his song, with raptures wild,

And on the happy minstrel smiled.

Soon did the wily stranger's eye

The notice most he wished espy,

Then poured his numbers bold and free,

Fired by the grace of majesty;

And when his last notes died away,

When sunk in well-feigned death he lay,
When round the crowd began to ring,

Thinking his spirit on the wing,

First of the dames she came along,

Wept, sighed, and marvelled 'mid the throng.

And when they raised him, it was said
The beauteous Sovereign deigned her aid;
And in her hands, so soft and warm,
Upheld the minstrel's hand and arm.
Then oped his eye with rapture fired;
He smiled, and, bowing oft, retired;
Pleased he so soon had realized,

What more than gold or fame he prized

Next in the list was Gardyn's name :
No sooner called than forth he came.
Stately he strode, nor bow made he,
Nor even a look of courtesy.

The simpering cringe, and fawning look,
Of him who late the lists forsook,

Roused his proud heart, and fired his eye,

That glowed with native dignity.

Full sixty years the bard had seen,
Yet still his manly form and mien,
His garb of ancient Caledon,

Where lines of silk and scarlet shone,
And golden garters 'neath his knee,
Announced no man of mean degree.

Upon his harp, of wonderous frame,
Was carved his lineage and his name.
There stood the cross that name above,

Fair emblem of Almighty love;
Beneath rose an embossment proud,-

A rose beneath a thistle bowed.

Lightly upon the form he sprung, And his bold harp impetuous rung. Not one by one the chords he tried,

But brushed them o'er from side to side,

With either hand, so rapid, loud,

Shook were the halls of Holyrood.

Then in a mellow tone, and strong,

He poured this wild and dreadful song.

Young Kennedy.

THE SECOND BARD'S SONG.

I.

When the gusts of October had rifled the thorn,
Had dappled the woodland, and umbered the plain,
In den of the mountain was Kennedy born:

There hushed by the tempest, baptized with the rain.
His cradle, a mat that swung light on the oak;
His couch, the sear mountain-fern, spread on the rock;
The white knobs of ice from the chilled nipple hung,
And loud winter-torrents his lullaby sung.

II.

Unheeded he shivered, unheeded he cried;

Soon died on the breeze of the forest his moan.

To his wailings, the weary wood-echo replied;
His watcher, the wondering redbreast alone.

E

Oft gazed his young eye on the whirl of the storm,
And all the wild shades that the desert deform;
From cleft in the correi, which thunders had riven,
It oped on the pale fleeting billows of heaven.

III.

The nursling of misery, young Kennedy learned
His hunger, his thirst, and his passions to feed:
With pity for others his heart never yearned,—
Their pain was his pleasure,-their sorrow his meed.
His eye was the eagle's, the twilight his hue;
His stature like pine of the hill where he grew;
His soul was the neal-fire, inhaled from his den,
And never knew fear, save for ghos. of the glen.

IV.

His father a chief, for barbarity known,

Proscribed, and by gallant Macdougal expelled;

Where rolls the dark Teith through the valley of Down, The conqueror's menial he toiled in the field.

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