where,

And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare.

Kilmeny had been where the cock never

crew,

Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew ;

But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung,

And the airs of heaven played round her tongue,

When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen,

And a land where sin had never been, -
A land of love and a land of light,
Withouten sun or moon or night;
Where the river swa'd a living stream,
And the light a pure celestial beam :
The land of vision it would seem,
A still, an everlasting dream.
In yon green-wood there is a waik,
And in that waik there is a wene,
And in that wene there is a maike,
That neither has flesh, blood, nor bane;
And down in yon green-wood he walks
his lane.

In that green wene Kilmeny lay,
Her bosom happed wi' the flowerets gay;
But the air was soft, and the silence deep,
And bonny Kilmeny fell sound asleep;
She kend nae mair, nor opened her e'e,
Till waked by the hymns of a far countrye.
She awaked on a couch of the silk sae
slim,

All striped wi' the bars of the rainbow's rim;

And lovely beings round were rife, Who erst had travelled mortal life; And aye they smiled, and 'gan to speer, "What spirit has brought this mortal here?"

They clasped her waist and her hands sae fair,

They kissed her cheek, and they kemed her hair,

And round came many a blooming fere, Saying, "Bonny Kilmeny, ye're welcome here!

"O, would the fairest of mortal kind
Aye keep the holy truths in mind,
That kindred spirits their motions see,
Who watch their ways with anxious e'e,
And grieve for the guilt of humanitye!
O, sweet to Heaven the maiden's prayer,

And dear to Heaven the words of truth, And the praise of virtue frae beauty's mouth!

And dear to the viewless forms of air,
The minds that kythe as the body fair!
O bonny Kilmeny! free frae stain,
If ever you seek the world again,
That world of sin, of sorrow, and fear,
O, tell of the joys that are waiting here,
And tell of the signs you shall shortly see;
Of the times that are now, and the times
that shall be."

"O, blest be the day Kilmeny was born! Now shall the land of the spirits see, Now shall it ken what a woman may be! The sun that shines on the world sae bright, A borrowed gleid of the fountain of light; And the moon that sleeks the sky sae dun, Like a gouden bow, or a beamless sun, Shall wear away, and be seen nae mair, And the angels shall miss them travelling the air.

But lang, lang after baith night and day, When the sun and the world have elyed

To warn the living maidens fair,
The loved of Heaven, the spirits' care,
That all whose minds unmeled remain
Shall bloom in beauty when time is gane.

With distant music, soft and deep,
They lulled Kilmeny sound asleep;
And when she awakened, she lay her lane,
All happed with flowers in the green-wood

wene.

When seven long years were come and fled;

When grief was calm, and hope was dead; When scarce was remembered Kilmeny's

name,

Late, late in a gloamin' Kilmeny came hame!

And O, her beauty was fair to see,
But still and steadfast was her e'e!
Such beauty bard may never declare,
For there was no pride nor passion there;
And the soft desire of maiden's een
In that mild face could never be seen.
Her seymar was the lily flower,
And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower,
And her voice like the distant melodye,
That floats along the twilight sea.
But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
And keeped afar frae the haunts of

men;

Her holy hymns unheard to sing,
To suck the flowers, and drink the spring.
But wherever her peaceful form appeared,
The wild beasts of the hill were cheered;
The wolf played blithely round the field,
The lordly bison lowed and kneeled;
The dun deer wooed with manner bland,
And cowered aneath her lily hand.
And when at even the woodlands rung,
When hymns of other worlds she sung
In ecstasy of sweet devotion,

O, then the glen was all in motion !
The wild beasts of the forest came,
Broke from their bughts and faulds the

123

The hawk and the hern attour them hung, And the merl and the mavis forhooyed their young;

And all in a peaceful ring were hurled ;It was like an eve in a sinless world!

When a month and a day had come and

gane,

Kilmeny sought the green-wood wene; There laid her down on the leaves sae green,

And Kilmeny on earth was never mair

seen.

But O, the words that fell from her mouth

Were words of wonder, and words of truth!

But all the land were in fear and dread, For they kendna whether she was living or dead.

It wasna her hame, and she couldna remain;

She left this world of sorrow and pain, And returned to the Land of Thought again.

THOMAS MOORE.

[1779-1852.]

FLY TO THE DESERT.

FLY to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab tents are rude for thee;
But, O, the choice what heart can doubt,
Of tents with love, or thrones without?

Our rocks are rough, but smiling there
The acacia waves her yellow hair,
Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less
For flowering in a wilderness.
Our sands are bare, but down their slope
As gracefully and gayly springs
The silvery-footed antelope
As o'er the marble courts of kings.

Then come,-thy Arab maid will be
The loved and lone acacia-tree,
The antelope, whose feet shall bless
With their light sound thy loveliness.

O, there are looks and tones that dart
An instant sunshine through the heart,
As if the soul that minute caught
Some treasure it through life had sought;

When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And e'en the hope that threw

A moment's sparkle o'er our tears
Is dimmed and vanished too,

So sweet

As that vale, in whose bosom the bright waters meet;

O, the last ray of feeling and life must depart

Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart!

Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene

Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;

"T was not the soft magic of streamlet or hill,

O, no! it was something more exquisite still.

Did not thy wing of love

Come, brightly wafting through the gloom
Our peace-branch from above?
Then sorrow, touched by thee, grows
bright

As darkness shows us worlds of light
With more than rapture's ray;
We never saw by day!

THOU ART, O GOD!

THOU art, O God! the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from thee.

THE LAKE OF GENEVA.

CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,

With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing

Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake

Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction; once I loved

Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring

Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved,

That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,

Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly

On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow.

Around his waist are forests braced,
The avalanche in his hand;
But ere it fall, that thundering ball
Must pause for my command.

The glacier's cold and restless mass
Moves onward day by day;
But I am he who bids it pass,
Or with its ice delay.

I am the spirit of the place,

Could make the mountain bow And quiver to his caverned base, And what with me wouldst Thou?

THE IMMORTAL MIND.

WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, Ah, whither strays the immortal mind? It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darkened dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace

By steps each planet's heavenly way} Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey?

Eternal, boundless, undecayed,

A thought unseen, but seeing all, All, all in earth or skies displayed,

Shall it survey, shall it recall: Each fainter trace that memory holds So darkly of departed years, In one broad glance the soul beholds, And all that was at once appears.

Before creation peopled earth,

Its eyes shall roll through chaos back; And where the farthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes,

Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quenched or system breaks, Fixed in its own eternity.

Above or love, hope, hate, or fear,

It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly,

A nameless and eternal thing,
Forgetting what it was to die.