Thou know'st it well,-nor fen, nor sedge,
Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge;
Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink
At once upon the level brink;
And just a trace of silver sand

Marks where the water meets the land.
Far in the mirror, bright and blue,
Each hill's huge outline you may view;
Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake, is there,
Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine,
Yet even this nakedness has power,

And aids the feeling of the hour :

Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,

Where living thing conceal'd might lie;

Nor point, retiring hides a dell,

Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell;

There's nothing left to fancy's guess,

You see that all is loneliness:

And silence aids-though the steep hills.

Send to the lake a thousand rills;

famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. She was married to Walter Scott of Harden, no less renowned for his depredations, than his bride for her beauty. Her romantic appellation was, in latter days, with equal justice, conferred on Miss Mary Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch of the Harden family. The author well remembers the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which procured her the name. The words usually sung to the air of “Tweedside,” beginning, “What beauties does Flora disclose," were composed in her honour.

In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep;

Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear,
But well I ween the dead are near;
For though, in feudal strife, a foe
Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low,1
Yet still, beneath the hallow'd soil,

The peasant rests him from his toil,

1 The chapel of St. Mary of the Lowes (de lacubus) was situated on the eastern side of the lake, to which it gives name. It was injured by the clan of Scott, in a feud with the Cranstouns; but continued to be a place of worship during the seventeenth century. The vestiges of the building can now scarcely be traced; but the burial ground is still used as a cemetery. A funeral, in a spot so very retired, has an uncommonly striking effect. The vestiges of the chaplain's house are yet visible. Being in a high situation, it commanded a full view of the lake, with the opposite mountain of Bourhope, belonging, with the lake itself, to Lord Napier. On the left hand is the tower of Dryhope, mentioned in a preceding note.

And, dying, bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers pray'd.

If age had tamed the passions' strife, And fate had cut my ties to life,

Here have I thought, 't were sweet to dwell,

And rear again the chaplain's cell,
Like that same peaceful hermitage,
Where Milton long'd to spend his age.1

"Twere sweet to mark the setting day,
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died

Το

On the broad lake, and mountain's side,
say, "Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and gray;"
Then gaze on Dryhope's ruin'd tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded Flower:
And when that mountain-sound I heard,
Which bids us be for storm prepared,
The distant rustling of his wings,
As up his force the Tempest brings,

And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew:
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
Il Penseros0.

'Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the Wizard's grave;

That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust,
From company of holy dust;1

On which no sunbeam ever shines

(So superstition's creed divines)

Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,

Heave her broad billows to the shore;
And mark the wild-swans mount the gale,

Spread wide through midst their snowy sail,

At one corner of the burial ground of the demolished chapel, but without its precincts, is a small mound, called Binram's Corse, where tradition deposits the remains of a necromantic priest, the former tenant of the chaplainry. His story much resembles that of Ambrosio in "The Monk," and has been made the theme of a ballad, by my friend Mr. James Hogg, more poetically designed the Ettrick Shepherd. To his volume, entitled "The Mountain Bard," which contains this, and many other legendary stories and ballads of great merit, I refer the curious reader.

N

And ever stoop again, to lave
Their bosoms on the surging wave;
Then, when against the driving hail
No longer might my plaid avail,
Back to my lonely home retire,
And light my lamp, and trim my fire;
There ponder o'er some mystic lay,
Till the wild tale had all its sway,
And, in the bittern's distant shriek,
I heard unearthly voices speak,

And thought the Wizard Priest was come,
To claim again his ancient home!
And bade my busy fancy range,

To frame him fitting shape and strange,
Till from the task my brow I clear'd,
And smiled to think that I had fear'd.

But chief, 't were sweet to think such life,
(Though but escape from fortune's strife,)
Something most matchless good and wise,
A great and grateful sacrifice;

And deem each hour to musing given,
A step upon the road to heaven.

Yet him, whose heart is ill at ease,

Such peaceful solitudes displease;
He loves to drown his bosom's jar

Amid the elemental war:

And my black Palmer's choice had been

Some ruder and more savage scene,