MAY DAY.

Sweet May, who has not hail'd thy smiling morn,
Beheld thy rising sun gild ether blue?

Who has not joyous brush'd thy pearly dew,
Or seen it sparkle on the springing corn,

And gem the meadow flowers of varied hue ; While soft the blackbird whistled on the thorn, The linnet blythe on slender broom-twig borne, And warbling skylark soaring from the view? Thou breathest fragrance in the evening gale, Or when soft zephyrs fan the daisied green, From azure violet or primrose pale;

When glowing twilight leads the swain, unseen, To whisper soft love's fondly tender tale,

Beneath the budding birch, whose odours scent the vale.

Such are thy sweets, dear, ever-blooming May;
And such the young delights that once were mine,
When youth, light-hearted, met thy morning ray,
And saw thy ev'ning skies in splendour shine:
Then I could careless on a bank recline,
And list the woodland warbler's vesper lay;
Or for my fair a flowery chaplet twine;
Or haply by thy streamlet musing stray,

A song to frame for charms transcending thine.
Now youth is past-these joys are fled for aye;
Thy flowers are fair, thy meadows green and gay;
But I am left in age and care to pine,-

To mourn Hope's promised fairy blossoms shed,
And shudder in the storm that howls around my head.

Enough of this. I check the rising sigh;

Of Nature's law 'tis bootless to complain; Since Heaven decrees that earthly bliss must fly,That man, like summer-flowers, must droop and die : Let me such murmuring, impious thoughts restrain; All sublunary joys still wax and wane, Like airy meteors gliding o'er the sky;

Or like the product of the spider's loom, Whose filmy texture mocks the gazer's eye:

Although the gathering shades of evening gloom,
Though blighted every flower that blossom'd fair,
There is a hope that looks beyond the tomb,
Contemplating celestial glories there,

And flowers for ever fair in amaranthine bloom.

THE CREST OF KIRKPATRICK :

"I WILL SECURE HIM."

BY G. R. CARTER.

Robert Bruce, who had already been informed of the treachery of Cummin, followed him out of the assembly, and, running him through the body, left him for dead. Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, one of Bruce's, friends, asked him, on his return, if the traitor was slain ? “I believe so, replied Bruce. "And is that a matter," cried Kirkpatrick, "to be left to conjecture? I will seeure him." He accordingly drew his dagger, ran to Cummin, and stabbed him to the heart.

From this incident the family of Kirkpatrick took for the crest of their arms, a hand with a bloody dagger: and as a motto, the words employed by their ancestor, when he executed that violent action,"I will secure him."-Russell's Modern Europe.

I will secure him! when proudly appears
Thy crest like a star amid legions of spears,
When the trumpet resounds like a distant stream,
And thy banner is bright as the sunset's beam.

I will secure him! when soft lutes sigh,
And beautiful lips to their strings reply;
When bosoms are deck'd with the festal rose,
And the sparkling wine at the banquet flows.

I will secure him! he cannot conceal
His trait'rous heart from my mountain-steel;
If he plead in my presence some mean excuse,
I will secure him! for Scotland and Bruce.

I will secure him! around these walls
The mournful gloom of the twilight falls;
Thou read'st his fate in my fearless eyes,-
I will secure him!-to-night he dies!

"Oh, ever-welcome Solitude! with thee
The soul returns to its first purity,

Taught in thy shades above the world to rise,
And claim again its kindred with the skies !"

If from constitutional melancholy only, or even that which is contracted by an early acquaintance with disappointment and misfortune, I were in love with solitude, I should endeavour to conquer that passion as a feeling, the indulgence of which was inconsistent with the design of our being; but it is otherwise-reason in this case is on the side of inclination, and tells me, that, though uninterrupted seclusion is neither practicable, nor proper, to those who cannot resolve to immure themselves within the walls of a hermitage or a monastery, occasional and lengthened retirements are indispensable to the preservation of vigour of mind and principle, and delicacy of sentiment and feeling; and that neither can be acquired or retained without it. We do not: expose tender and delicate herbs to the continual blaze of a fervid sun they would be prematurely expanded, and therefore would prematurely wither; neither must the delicate unfoldings of the heart and intellect be continually brought before public observation; it will induce them too hastily to put forth their powers, and, eventually, much injure, if not wholly destroy, that strength and beauty which might have adorned and improved the world. Youth, therefore, should be nurtured in much seclusion, should be taught to examine the actions of which they may be informed, by the unerringo rules of virtue and reason, far from the voice of popular clamour, which is made up of selfish interests and ignorant prejudices. They will thus lay a foundation of right principles in their hearts that will be unfailingly communicated to the succeeding age. There is scarcely any habit so de-. grading to the character of a man, as a rational being, as the indiscriminate adoption of opinions because they are held by others: it is this which produces that absurd and lamentable party spirit, which infallibly engenders servility, and all its train of dastardly feelings, and contemptible actions; *L. 37.1.

X

and which is the bane of every social feeling and noble principle. Yet, who that continually mingles with the world, and is incessantly identified with some particular interest, can entirely avoid the contagion! It is only in solitude that he has power to detect his errors. And there, how frequently will the blush of self-accusation mount to the cheek of the ingenuous, at the idea that they have meanly given their assent to actions, which, in the retirement of their hearts, they condemn; and which, had they sought it before, they would have spurned and avoided.

It is in deep solitude too that our most fervent aspirations after the Deity must be breathed; it is in the lonely contemplation of his works that we feel our spirits most elevated to the all-glorious Creator-any division of attention with a fellow-being destroys the deep and overpowering feeling of his Single Presence. We are alone with God; we have no thought, no ear, no eye, for any other object; we hear him, we see him, we feel him, in every breath, in every tint, in every beam; and while that one scene of nature is unshared by another human gaze, He converses through its medium only with us. Then it is that we hear him pronounce as it were aloud, "my son or my daughter give me thine heart; behold how worthy am I, thy creating Father, of the offering! if these be the beauties of the earth, which is intended for so short a sojourn of those who love me, canst thou imagine those of that region which is to be thy eternal dwelling-place?" The soft decline of evening seems most congenial to the influence of solitary feelings and contemplations; then have we leisure for the retrospect of the day, for the recollection of mercies that demand praise, and of deliverances that ask gratitude; for the repose of the mind after its incessant toils, and the indulgence of the heart in soft and tender emotions. It may be added, for the discipline of the spirit to the endurance of the fresh toils and disappointments, which the experience of the past may have taught us to expect.

In cases of deep affliction, what situation is so desirable as Solitude? How torturing to the distressed mind, is the necessity of continual exposure to the public eye; and the consequent suppression of feelings which nature tells us must be indulged, that the heart may be relieved, and the

mind restored to its former tone and elasticity! I shall here beg leave to introduce a little tale, to evidence the salutary effects of retirement in an instance of extreme grief, as an example to those who, when oppressed with its weight, vainly, and I may say impiously, endeavour to lose the memory of their Maker's chastisements in the frivolous and frequently guilty society of the gay and dissipated.

I was once acquainted with a young and beautiful girl, who to all the advantages of a lovely person, added the superior charms of a richly cultivated understanding. She was early united to a gentleman in all respects worthy of her, and for two years their beautiful retreat was emparadised by a domestic union, the most uninterrupted and endearing that could be experienced on earth. Delighting only in the society of his adored wife, he was never absent from her, except when the requirements of his sacred duties as a clergyman, obliged him to visit his more distant parishioners; the distance of their humble habitations from his own never excusing him from an office which he justly considered one of the most important that is entrusted to a Christian minister. Returning one winter's evening from a village some few miles on the other side of the river near which the parsonage stood, a sudden gust of wind overset the boat; assistance came too late to save him, and the following morning, he who had been the light of his dwelling-place, the father of the fatherless, the ready friend of the distressed, and the unwearied guide of the wandering into the paths of everlasting life, was stretched upon the sable bier; those eyes for ever closed which beamed with benevolence on all around him, powerless those hands which were ever open to relieve, and pulseless that heart which had beat with the most unconfined regard to the human race. I will not endeavour to paint the first agony of his bereaved wife, nor the depth of anguish exhibited on her countenance. Her mother, after the last melancholy duties were performed, insisted on her accompanying her to London, declaring that the grief to which she knew she would yield herself, would destroy her. Arrived in the metropolis, the mistaken parent hurried her daughter from one scene of amusement to another, in the fruitless hope of dissipating her melancholy. I was favoured with her cor