ROBERT BURNS.

A FRAGMENT.

SCOTLAND, meet nurse of the poetic spirit,

Gave to the boy his lyre;

From whose wild heart her ballad-bards inherit
Their pathos and their fire.

She did but touch them with her inspiration,

Put harps into their hand;

There was enough of love, and indignation,
And legend in the land.

To them the "gurly" ocean brought a wailing

Of girls in "kames o' goud;"

"Sir Patrick and our true loves are not sailing"

Home, for the sea's their shroud.

Fair Elfland's Queen, when summer twilight brought her,

Rode through the diamond dew;

The jingling spurs were out by Eden water,

Moss-troopers not a few.

The slow pathetic strain went dying, dying,
Griefless at last to be,

Turf-happ'd and sound asleep, with Helen lying
On fair Kirkconnel lea.

She lends its crimson glory to the heather,
Mist wraps the hills afar,

Blends natural and human things together,
Storm, sunshine, love, and war.

Mother of many songs on field and ocean,
Lost love that weeps and yearns,

Mother of homely faith and high devotion,
And most of Robert Burns.

All Scottish legends did his fancy fashion,
All airs that richly flow,

Laughing with frolic, tremulous with passion,
Broken with love-lorn woe:

Ballads whose beauties years have long been stealing

And left few links of gold,

Under his quaint and subtle touch of healing

Grew fairer, not less old.

Grey Cluden, and the vestals' choral cadence,

His might awoke therewith;

Till boatmen hung their oars to hear the maidens
Upon the banks of Nith.

His, too, the strains of battle nobly coming
From Bruce, or Wallace wight,

Such as the Highlander shall oft be humming
Before some famous fight.

Nor only these for him the hawthorn hoary
Was with new wreaths enwrought,

The crimson-tippèd daisy wore fresh glory,
Born of poetic thought.

From the "

wee cow'ring beastie" he could borrow

A moral strain sublime,

A noble tenderness of human sorrow,

In wondrous wealth of rhyme.

Oh but the mountain breeze must have been pleasant,

Upon the sunburnt brow

Of that poetic and triumphant peasant

Driving his laurell'd plough!

Him on whom Heav'n bestow'd the heart's fine flashes,

The lyrist's delicate art;

While man wrote out for symbol on his ashes

A broken lyre and heart.

Yea, and himself of wassail, praise, and passion,
Drank deeply in his years,

And thereof for his future fame did fashion

A veil of smiles and tears.

Smiles for the song that hath such rare beguilement, Laughter, and love to win;

Tears for the dust, and ashes, and defilement,

Tears for the shame and sin.

O the wild wit that mars the holy hymning!

The stains upon the stole !

The spray-drops from the sea of passion dimming

The windows of the soul !

Hush! the man's sighs, his longings, and his laughter

Are silent now by Doun;

The music of the immortal song lives after,

A many mingled tune.

And all at last, with solemn sweet surprises,

In anthems die away,

And o'er the glee of Tam O'Shanter rises The "Cotter's Saturday."

And from a multitude beside the river,

And on the mountain sod,

Sweetly goes up for ever, and for ever, "Come, let us worship God."

A THOUGHT FOR THE ROYAL BRIDAL.

ALL winter long

I tarried in a strange, monotonous land,
Among pine forests-an eternal throng

Of green plumes, changeless o'er the changeless sand,
Whereto the ocean singeth one sole song,
Heard swinging heavily by sun or star,
On its Biscayan bar.

But with the spring

I see the mountains topp'd with sunny white,
Like silver clouds beyond imagining,

Rise in the cloudless blue, and, day or night,
'Tis sweet to hear clear-water'd Adour sing,
And watch the shadows which far forests throw
On Pyrenean snow.

All the year through

There hung a grand monotony of grief
O'er England, ever quiet, ever true.

Speeches and elegies perchance were brief,

But voices faltered, till the whole world knew

She mourn'd her Prince-from evil tongues secure
Because his heart was pure.

K