68

The Demon Lover

'O WHERE have you been, my long, long love,
This long seven years and mair?'

'O I'm come to seek my former vows
Ye granted me before.'

'O hold your tongue of your former vows,
For they will breed sad strife ;

O hold your tongue of

your

For I am become a wife.'

former vows,

He turned him right and round about,
And the tear blinded his e'e:

'I wad never hae trodden on Irish ground
If it had not been for thee.

'I might hae had a king's daughter,
Far, far beyond the sea;

I might have had a king's daughter,
Had it not been for love o' thee.'

'If ye might have had a king's daughter,
Yer sel ye had to blame;

Ye might have taken the king's daughter,
For ye kend that I was nane.'

'O faulse are the vows o' womankind,
But fair is their faulse bodie;

I never wad hae trodden on Irish ground,
Had it not been for love o' thee.'

'If I was to leave my husband dear,
And my two babes also,

O what have you to take me to,
If with you I should go?'

'I hae seven ships upon the sea,
The eighth brought me to land;
With four-and-twenty bold mariners,
And music on every hand.'

She has taken up her two little babes,
Kissed them baith cheek and chin;
'O fare ye weel, my ain twa babes,
For I'll never see you again.'

She set her foot upon the ship,

No mariners could she behold; But the sails were o' the taffetie

And the masts o' the beaten gold.

She had not sailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
When dismal grew his countenance,
And drumlie grew his e'e.

The masts, that were like the beaten gold,
Bent not on the heaving seas;

But the sails, that were o' the taffetie,
Fill'd not in the east land breeze.

They had not sailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
Until she espied his cloven foot,
And she wept right bitterlie.

'O hold your tongue of your weeping,' says he, 'Of your weeping now let me be;

I will show you how the lilies grow

On the banks of Italy.'

'O what hills are yon, yon pleasant hills, That the sun shines sweetly on?'

"O yon are the hills of heaven,' he said,
Where you will never win.'

'O whaten a mountain is yon,' she said,
'All so dreary wi' frost and snow?'
"O yon is the mountain of hell,' he cried,
'Where you and I will go.'

And aye when she turn'd her round about,
Aye taller he seemed to be;

Until that the tops o' the gallant ship

Nae taller were than he.

The clouds grew dark, and the wind grew loud,
And the leven filled her e'e;

And waesome wail'd the snow-white sprites
Upon the gurlie sea.

He strack the tapmast wi' his hand,
The foremast wi' his knee;

And he brake that gallant ship in twain,
And sank her in the sea.

MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BOrder.

The Lawlands of Holland

THE Love that I have chosen

I'll therewith be content;
The salt sea shall be frozen
Before that I repent.
Repent it shall I never
Until the day I dee!

But the Lawlands of Holland
Have twinn'd my Love and me.

My Love he built a bonny ship,
And set her to the main ;
With twenty-four brave mariners
To sail her out and hame.
But the weary wind began to rise,
The sea began to rout,

And my Love and his bonny ship
Turn'd withershins about.

There shall no mantle cross my back,
No comb go in my hair,
Neither shall coal nor candle-light

Shine in my bower mair;

Nor shall I choose another Love

Until the day I dee,

Since the Lawlands of Holland

Have twinn'd my Love and me.

'Now haud your tongue, my daughter dear,
Be still, and bide content!
There's other lads in Galloway;

Ye needna sair lament.'
-O there is none in Galloway,
There's none at all for me :-
I never loved a lad but one,

And he's drown'd in the sea.

UNKNOWN.

The Valley of Unrest

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell:
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly from their azure towers
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless—
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet heaven
Unceasingly, from morn till even.
Over the violets there that lie

In myriad types of the human eye—
Over the lilies there that wave

And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave- —from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops;
They weep-from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.

POE.

The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna

NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him ;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,-
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone-
But we left him alone with his glory!

C. WOLFE.

St. Swithin's Chair

ON Hallow-Mass Eve, ere you boune ye to rest,
Ever beware that your couch be bless'd;
Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead,
Sing the Ave, and say the Creed.

For on Hallow-Mass Eve the Night-Hag will ride,
And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side,
Whether the wind sing lowly or loud,

Sailing through moonshine or swath'd in the cloud.

The Lady she sate in St. Swithin's Chair,
The dew of the night has damp'd her hair: