And I have stood beside the pile,

-

His monument - - that tells to Heaven
The homage of earth's proudest isle
To that Bard-peasant given !

Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot,
Boy-minstrel, in thy dreaming hour;
And know, however low his lot,
A Poet's pride and power:

The pride that lifted Burns from earth,
The power that gave a child of song
Ascendency o'er rank and birth,
The rich, the brave, the strong;

And if despondency weigh down
Thy spirit's fluttering pinions then,
Despair thy name is written on
The roll of common men.

-

Where mourners weep, where lovers woo, From throne to cottage-hearth?

What sweet tears dim the eye unshed, What wild vows falter on the tongue, When "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," Or "Auld Lang Syne" is sung!

Pure hopes, that lift the soul above,

Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise, And dreams of youth, and truth, and love, With "Logan's" banks and braes.

And when he breathes his master-lay
Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall,
All passions in our frames of clay
Come thronging at his call.

Imagination's world of air,

And our own world, its gloom and glee, Wit, pathos, poetry, are there, And death's sublimity.

And Burns though brief the race he ran, Though rough and dark the path he trod, Lived died in form and soul a Man, The image of his God.

FROM "THE CULPRIT FAY"
THE FAY'S SENTENCE

THE monarch sat on his judgment-seat,
On his brow the crown imperial shone,
The prisoner Fay was at his feet,
And his peers were ranged around the
throne.

He waved his sceptre in the air;

He looked around and calmly spoke; His brow was grave and his eye severe, But his voice in a softened accent broke:

"Fairy! Fairy! list and mark,

Thou hast broke thine elfin chain,

Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,

And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain

Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity
In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye,
Thou hast scorned our dread decree,
And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high,
But well I know her sinless mind
Is pure as the angel forms above,
Gentle and meek, and chaste and kind,
Such as a spirit well might love;
Fairy had she spot or taint,
Bitter had been thy punishment.
Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;
Tossed on the pricks of nettle's stings;
Or seven long ages doomed to dwell

With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell;
Or every night to writhe and bleed
Beneath the tread of the centipede;
Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim,
Your jailer a spider huge and grim,
Amid the carrion bodies to lie,

Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly;

These it had been your lot to bear,
Had a stain been found on the earthly fair.
Now list, and mark our mild decree
Fairy, this your doom must be :

"Thou shalt seek the beach of sand Where the water bounds the elfin land, Thou shalt watch the oozy brine

Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,

Then dart the glistening arch below,
And catch a drop from his silver bow.
The water-sprites will wield their arms

And dash around, with roar and rave,
And vain are the woodland spirits' charms,
They are the imps that rule the wave.
Yet trust thee in thy single might,
If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,
Thou shalt win the warlock fight.

"If the spray-bead gem be won,

The stain of thy wing is washed away, But another errand must be done

Ere thy crime be lost for aye; Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,

Thou must re-illumine its spark.
Mount thy steed and spur him high
To the heaven's blue canopy;

And when thou seest a shooting star,
Follow it fast, and follow it far-
The last faint spark of its burning train
Shall light the elfin lamp again.
Thou hast heard our sentence, Fay;
Hence! to the water-side, away!"

THE FIRST QUEST

The goblin marked his monarch well; He spake not, but he bowed him low, Then plucked a crimson colon-bell,

And turned him round in act to go. The way is long, he cannot fly,

His soiled wing has lost its power, And he winds adown the mountain high, For many a sore and weary hour, Through dreary beds of tangled fern,

Through groves of nightshade dark and dern,

Over the grass and through the brake, Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake; Now o'er the violet's azure flush

He skips along in lightsome mood;

And now he thrids the bramble bush, Till its points are dyed in fairy blood. He has leapt the bog, he has pierced the brier,

He has swum the brook, and waded the mire,

Till his spirits sank, and his limbs grew weak,

And the red waxed fainter in his cheek.
He had fallen to the ground outright,

For rugged and dim was his onward track,

But there came a spotted toad in sight, And he laughed as he jumped upon her

back;

He bridled her mouth with a silk-weed twist;

He lashed her sides with an osier thong; And now through evening's dewy mist,

With leap and spring they bound along, Till the mountain's magic verge is past, And the beach of sand is reached at last.

Soft and pale is the moony beam,
Moveless still the glassy stream,
The wave is clear, the beach is bright

With snowy shells and sparkling stones; The shore-surge comes in ripples light,

In murmurings faint and distant moans; And ever afar in the silence deep Is heard the splash of the sturgeon's leap, And the bend of his graceful bow is

seen

A glittering arch of silver sheen,
Spanning the wave of burnished blue,
And dripping with gems of the river dew.

The elfin cast a glance around,

As he lighted down from his courser toad,

Then round his breast his wings he wound,
And close to the river's brink he strode;
He sprang on a rock, he breathed a prayer,
Above his head his arms he threw,
Then tossed a tiny curve in air,

And headlong plunged in the waters blue.

Up sprung the spirits of the waves,
From sea-silk beds in their coral caves;