And the mool that haps them roun' and laps them

Is e'en their country's clay;

But the land we tread that are not dead

Is strange as night by day.

Strange as night in a strange man's sight,
Though fair as dawn it be:

For what is here that a stranger's cheer
Should yet wax blithe to see?

The hills stand steep, the dells lie deep,
The fields are green and gold:

The hill-streams sing, and the hill-sides ring,
As ours at home of old.

But hills and flowers are nane of ours,

And ours are oversea:

And the kind strange land whereon we stand,
It wotsna what were we

Or ever we came, wi' scathe and shame,
To try what end might be.

Scathe, and shame, and a waefu' name,
And a weary time and strange,

Have they that seeing a weird for dreeing
Can die, and cannot change.

Shame and scorn may we thole that mourn,
Though sair be they to dree:

But ill may we bide the thoughts we hide,
Mair keen than wind and sea.

Ill may we thole the night's watches,

And ill the weary day:

And the dreams that keep the gates of sleep,

A waefu' gift gie they;

For the sangs they sing us, the sights they bring us, The morn blaws all away.

On Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw,
The burn rins blithe and fain:
There's nought wi' me I wadna gie
To look thereon again.

On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide:
There sounds nae hunting-horn

That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat
Round banks where Tyne is born.

The Wansbeck sings with all her springs,
The bents and braes give ear;

But the wood that rings wi' the sang she sings

I may not see nor hear;

For far and far thae blithe burns are,

And strange is a' thing near.

The light there lightens, the day there brightens, The loud wind there lives free:

Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by me That I wad hear or see.

But O gin I were there again,

Afar ayont the faem,

Cauld and dead in the sweet, saft bed

That haps my sires at hame!

We'll see nae mair the sea banks fair,
And the sweet grey gleaming sky,

And the lordly strand of Northumberland,
And the goodly towers thereby;

And none shall know but the winds that blow

The graves wherein we lie.

Swinburne.

Three Portraits of Prince Charles

B

(1731)

EAUTIFUL face of a child,

Lighted with laughter and glee, Mirthful, and tender, and wild, My heart is heavy for thee!

(1744)

Beautiful face of a youth,

As an eagle poised to fly forth,

To the old land loyal of truth,

To the hills and the sounds of the North:

Fair face, daring and proud,

Lo! the shadow of doom even now,

The fate of thy line, like a cloud,

Rests on the grace of thy brow!

(1773)

Cruel and angry face,

Hateful and heavy with wine,
Where are the gladness, the grace,

The beauty, the mirth that were thine?

Ah, my Prince, it were well,

Hadst thou to the gods been dear,-
To have fallen where Keppoch fell,
With the war-pipe loud in thine ear!

To have died with never a stain

On the fair White Rose of Renown,

To have fallen, fighting in vain,

For thy father, thy faith, and thy crown!
More than thy marble pile,

With its women weeping for thee,
Were to dream in thine ancient isle,
To the endless dirge of the sea!
(B 838)

8

But the Fates deemed otherwise,
Far thou sleepest from home,
From the tears of the Northern skies,

In the secular dust of Rome.

A city of death and the dead,
But thither a pilgrim came,
Wearing on weary head

The crowns of years and fame:
Little the Lucrine lake

Or Tivoli said to him,

Scarce did the memories wake
Of the far-off years and dim.
For he stood by Avernus' shore,
But he dreamed of a Northern glen
And he murmured, over and o'er,
"For Charlie and his men":
And his feet, to death that went,
Crept forth to St. Peter's shrine,

And the latest Minstrel bent
O'er the last of the Stuart line.

Andrew Lang.

Prince Charlie's Weather-Vane

A

T Florence, in a listless street,
A dull old palace stands,

Where many gardens lone and sweet
Grow odorous in the waning heat,
As evening's shade expands.

Stone shepherdesses quaint and grey
Stand round it, and clipped trees;
And half-neglect and faint decay
Bring gently home a by-gone day
In twilight's blunt degrees.

Upon the roof, against the sky,

There stands a weather-vane,— A metal flag that with each sigh Of breeze that passes fitfully, Shifts like a thing in pain.

And if you be not over far,
Against the pearly light

You see two letters stamped-C.R.,
Upon it, near some clear white star,
Just twinkling into sight.

Few are the passers-by who know
Whose those initials be;
Or who, in empty regal show,

Saw here his ungrasped kingdom grow
Each year more shadowy.

Who thinks, out here, of that stiff race
Of Stuarts, who ne'er could find
The heart to veer or change their face,
And left here, as their only trace,

A weather-cock behind?

Thou rusty Jacobitish vane,

Does thy faint creak still tell

The sparrows, that, spite sun and rain, The King shall have his own again, And all shall yet be well?

Or dost thou tell the breeze that fans
The tree-tops near thee there,
An endless tale of Prestonpans,
Of Falkirk and the conquering clans,
Culloden and despair?