Before she

sey

another flight,

To play wi' the norland lion's might.

But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw,
So far surpassing Nature's law,
The singer's voice wad sink away,

And the string of his harp wad cease to play.
But she saw till the sorrows of man were by,
And all was love and harmony;

Till the stars of heaven fell calmly away,
Like the flakes of snaw on a winter's day.

Then Kilmeny begged again to see
The friends she had left in her own countrye,
To tell of the place where she had been,
And the glories that lay in the land unseen;
To warn the living maidens fair,

The loved of heaven, the spirits' care,
That all whose minds unmeled remain
Shall bloom in beauty when time is gane.

With distant music, soft and deep, They lulled Kilmeny sound asleep; And when she awakened, she lay her lane, All happed with flowers in the greenwood wene. When seven long years had come and fled; When grief was calm, and hope was dead; When scarce was remembered Kilmeny's name, Late, late in a gloamin, Kilmeny came hame! And O, her beauty was fair to see,

But still and steadfast was her ee!

Such beauty bard may never declare,

For there was no pride nor passion there;
And the soft desire of maidens' een,

In that mild face could never be seen.
Her seymar was the lily flower,

And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower;
And her voice like the distant melodye
That floats along the twilight sea.
But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
And keeped afar frae the haunts of men;
Her holy hymns unheard to sing,
To suck the flowers and drink the spring.
But wherever her peaceful form appeared,
The wild beasts of the hills were cheered!
The wolf played blythely round the field,
The lordly byson lowed and kneeled;
The dun deer wooed with manner bland,
And cowered aneath her lily hand.
And when at even the woodlands rung,
When hymns of other worlds she sung
In ecstasy of sweet devotion,
O, then the glen was all in motion!
The wild beasts of the forest came,

Broke from their bughts and faulds the tame,
And goved around, charmed and amazed;
Even the dull cattle crooned and gazed,

And murmured and looked with anxious pain,
For something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard came with the throstle-cock,
The corby left her houf in the rock;
The blackbird alang wi' the eagle flew;

The hind came tripping o'er the dew;

The wolf and the kid their raike began;

And the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret ran;
The hawk and the hern attour them hung,

And the merl and the mavis forhooyed their young;
And all in a peaceful ring were hurled :

It was like an eve in a sinless world!

When a month and day had come and gane,
Kilmeny sought the greenwood wene;
There laid her down on the leaves sae green,
And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen.
But O, the words that fell from her mouth,
Were words of wonder, and words of truth!
But all the land were in fear and dread,

For they kend na whether she was living or dead.
It wasna her hame, and she couldna remain ;
She left this world of sorrow and pain,

And returned to the land of thought again.

WAS in the prime of summer time,
An evening calm and cool,

And four-and-twenty happy boys

Came bounding out of school;

There were some that ran and some that leapt, Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds

And souls untouched by sin;
To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
Over the town of Lynn.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,

And shouted as they ran,

Turning to mirth all things of earth,

As only boyhood can;

But the usher sat remote from all,
A melancholy man!

His hat was off, his vest apart,

To catch heaven's blessed breeze; For a burning thought was in his brow, And his bosom ill at ease;

So he leaned his head on his hands, and read

The book between his knees!

Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er,
Nor ever glanced aside;

For the peace of his soul he read that book
In the golden eventide;

Much study had made him very lean,
And pale, and leaden-eyed.

At last he shut the ponderous tome;
With a fast and fervent grasp
He strained the dusky covers close,
And fixed the brazen hasp:
"O God! could I so close my mind,
And clasp it with a clasp!"

Then leaping on his feet upright,

Some moody turns he took,

Now

up the mead, then down the mead,

And past a shady nook,

And, lo! he saw a little boy

That pored upon a book!

"My gentle lad, what is 't

Romance or fairy fable?

Or is it some historic page,

you

read,

Of kings and crowns unstable ?"