BURNS AND HIGHLAND MARY.

By ROBERT REID.

A ROYAL harp hung in Life's palace hall;
And one by one, as out and in they strayed,
The careless guests a fitful music made-
Striking its strings: so true the sounds did fall
That whoso heard straightway for more did call;
Thus many strains the willing harp essayed
As many hands (and some unworthy!) played.
Ah! but when Love, the master player of all,
Parting in tears from one fair visitor,
Taught her deft fingers 'mong its cords to twine,-
The poor dumb instrument, whose soul did stir
With sudden transport,-left on earth to pine,—
Yearn'd evermore for the dear hands of her,
Knowing their touch t' have been indeed divine!

HIGHLAND MARY IN MARBLE.

By GEORGE SAVAGE.

A LIFE-SIZE Statue of Mary Campbell stands in the Lennox Gallery, in the City of New York. The sculptor's skilful hand has unfolded from purest marble Mary Campbell, as lovely in form and features doubtless as was the Highland maiden Burns knew and loved. In her hands she clasps the Bible Burns gave her; with downcast eyes, as if in maiden bashfulness, she looks into the clear depths of the fast flowing stream which separated them on that beautiful Sunday in May when they parted forever, and a Scottish plaid falls gracefully from her head and shoulders. It is a triumph of Art, in which Sculpture is wedded to Poetry and Love.

It was indeed a happy thought to thus perpetuate in enduring stone the sculptor's admirable conception of the beloved one whose name will always be associated with that of him who sang of her, and to place it in a noble temple in one of the greatest cities of the world, where all may observe with delight that amid the many treasures of genius gathered within its walls, is a silent but eloquent memorial of Scottish purity, love and poetry. In its presence no unhallowed thought can live, and we are transported, as it were, from the surroundings of wealth and busy life, to Scotia's soil and the banks of the Ayr, and into another age, as we realize how akin to all that is best in us to-day was the love of Burns and Mary Campbell. Truly "heart-felt raptures" and "bliss beyond compare" lie deep within pure minds and hearts, awaiting only the touch of Him who

wisely made us largely dependent for our happiness upon the love of others.

The noblest and the tenderest chapter in the life of Robert Burns is that which tells of his love for Mary Campbell, and it will ever awaken a higher estimate of the hallowed sympathy with which the great Creator binds together the hearts of man and woman. It is filled with the purest radiance, and though death's " 'untimely frost" fell upon her all too soon, the halo and inspiration of reciprocated love remained with him to the last. His poems addressed to her, ending with the one so inexpressibly sad in its retrospect and prayer, and entitled "To Mary in Heaven," breathe a spirit of pure devotion, and whatever the lights and shadows which enter into other views of him, here is one which all may admire for its undimmed beauty. It is idle to conjecture what might have been the difference to Burns and the world had he wedded his "Sweet Highland Mary," and what it is to love and suffer as did Burns, can be understood only by those who, like him and our brilliant Maryland Poe, who loved Lenore, have loved-and lost. Mary Campbell sleeps in a dingy churchyard at Greenock, but Burns has embalmed her memory in loving verses, and she will be remembered with Dante's Beatrice, and Petrarch's Laura, because true lovers will ever delight to read of the constant love of others, and because it was her most rare fortune to inspire an immortal poet with love for her, and to have him tune his lyre in her praise in verse, which touches millions with its deep and genuine melody and pathos.

HIGHLAND MARY.

By Rev. ARTHUR JOHN LOCKHART.

A SINGLE strain-I turned to see
Who bore that thrilling voice :
Of all the chances to a bard

This was Apollo's choice.

In Love's green lodge I met her first-
The springtide wilderness :

A star come down and changed a maid—
This was her loveliness!

My Una of the Scottish wild—
My Highland Mary-stood
Shedding an angel-light athwart
Her sylvan neighbourhood.

Not buxom-warm like Bonnie Jean,
Yet pearly bright was she;

She held my heart's keen passion-fire
In awful chastity.

A Grace of shining shapeliness-
Her milk-white feet were bare ;
A glimmering aureole seemed to rest
Upon her golden hair.

One crispèd lock is all I hold,

To show she once was mine,—

That I have clasped with trembling arms A creature so divine.

Pity, and trust, and gentleness
Were in her soft blue eyes,
That misted with celestial dew,
Communed of Paradise.

O Sabbath! sacred more than all
The holy-gifted span
That light the tearful heritage
Of toil-encumbered man ;-

That day I never can forget

When last I met her here:
Sweeter, the singing birds, the bloom
That decked the opening year.

'Twas in the merrie month of May;
The birk-tree's tender green
And cluster'd hawthorns scented flowers
Along the Ayr were seen.

The laverock darted up on high,
Scattering his fiery notes;

And merle and mavis shook the songs
From their enamoured throats.