JAMES HOGG was born in Ettrick, Selkirkshire, Scotland, in 1770. The precise date is unknown. His ancestors were shepherds; he followed the same occupation, and is known in literature as the Ettrick Shepherd rather better than by his proper name. His mother is said to have been a woman of superior energy, with considerable culture.

When the poet was six years of age, his father, who had been thrifty and prosperous, became bankrupt, and the boy was taken from school, where he had been but three months, and hired out as a cow-herd. His wages for six months were a ewe lamb and a pair of shoes. At the end of this engagement he attended school three months longer, which was all the education he ever received. His life was spent among the hills, where he soon forgot whatever he had learned.

In his fourteenth year, finding that he had some taste for music, he saved five shillings and bought an old violin, on which he learned to play his favorite tunes. At the age of eighteen he had reached the comparatively easy post of shepherd, and he began to teach himself to read, using borrowed copies of Minstrel's "Life of Sir William Wallace," and Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd." In his twentieth year he entered the service of James Laidlaw, who appreciated Hogg's desire for learning and gave him the use of his library. He was assisted also by his master's son William (afterward Sir Walter Scott's amanuensis), who writes: "He was not long in going through all the books belonging to my father; and learning from me that Mr. Elder, bookseller, Peebles, had a large collection of books which he used as a circulating library, he forthwith became a subscriber,

KILMENY.

BONNY Kilmeny gaed up the glen; But it wasna to meet Duneira's men, Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see, For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. It was only to hear the yorlin sing, And pu' the cress-flower round the springThe scarlet hypp, and the hind-berry, And the nut that hung frae the hazel-tree; For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. But lang may her minny look o'er the wa', And lang may she seek i' the green-wood shaw;

and by that means read Smollett's and Field. ing's novels, and those voyages and travels which were published at the time, including those of Cook, Carteret, and others."

All this time Hogg had not attempted penmanship. He now learned to write while sitting on the hillside watching his sheep, his knees being his desk, with the ink-bottle suspended from his button-hole.

He composed his first poem when twenty-six years old. It was a song for the shepherd-girls, who thereupon gave him the title of "Jamie the Poeter." He was a great favorite among the young people of his own sphere, both because of his music and verses, and because he was handsome, strong, and amiable.

His first publication was of short prose essays, in the "Scots Magazine." At a party in Edinburgh he was asked for a song, and sang one of his own, which was received with great applause, and one of the company procured its publication, when it speedily became popular in all parts of the kingdom. In 1801 he published his first book, a pamphlet of sixty-two pages, entitled "Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs, etc.," which was well received, and in 1803 he published "The Mountain Bard," a collection of songs and poems, with a sketch of his life. In 1810 he went to Edinburgh as a literary adventurer, where he established a short-lived weekly called "The Spy," and gradually became intimate with men of letters. In 1813 he published his greatest poem, "The Queen's Wake," which was immediately successful and fully established his fame. He wrote various other books, but only his poems and his tales Lave fairly survived.

He died on November 21, 1835.

When the ingle lowed with an eiry leme,
Late, late in the gloamin Kilmeny came hame!

"Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
Lang hae we sought both holt and den-
By linn, by ford, and green-wood tree;
Yet you are halesome and fair to see.
Where got you that joup o' the lily sheen?
That bonny snood of the birk sae green?
And these roses, the fairest that ever was seen?
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?"

Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace, But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny's face; As still was her look, and as still was her ee, As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea, Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea. For Kilmeny had been she knew not 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, and 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 happ'd 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 ee, Till waked by the hymns of a far countrye.

She 'wakened on a couch of the silk sae slim,

All striped wi' the bars of the rainbow's rim;
And lovely beings around were rife,
Who erst had travelled mortal life;
And aye they smiled, and 'gan to speer:
"What spirit has brought this mortal here!"

"Lang have I journeyed the world wide," A meek and reverend fere replied; "Baith night and day I have watched the fair Eident a thousand years and mair. Yes, I have watched o'er ilk degree, Wherever blooms femenitye; But sinless virgin, free of stain, In mind and body, fand I nane. Never, since the banquet of time, Found I a virgin in her prime, Till late this bonny maiden I saw, As spotless as the morning snaw. Full twenty years she has lived as free

As the spirits that sojourn in this countrye.

I have brought her away frae the snares of men, That sin or death she may never ken."

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;
Women are freed of the littand scorn;
Oh, blest be the day Kilmeny was born!
Now shall the land of the spirits see,
Now shall it ken, what a woman may be!
Many a lang year in sorrow and pain,
Many a lang year through the world we've gane,
Commissioned to watch fair womankind,

For it's they who nurice the immortal mind.
We have watched their steps as the dawning
shone,

And deep in the green-wood walks alone;
By lily bower and silken bed

The viewless tears have o'er them shed;
Have soothed their ardent minds to sleep,
Or left the couch of love to weep.
We have seen! we have seen! but the time
must come,

And the angels will weep at the day of doom!

"Oh, 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 ee, And grieve for the guilt of humanitye! Oh, sweet to heaven the maiden's prayer, And the sigh that heaves a bosom sae fair! 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 againThat world of sin, of sorrow and fearOh, 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."

They lifted Kilmeny, they led her away, And she walked in the light of a sunless day; The sky was a dome of crystal bright, The fountain of vision, and fountain of light; The emerald fields were of dazzling glow, And the flowers of everlasting blow.

Then deep in the stream her body they laid,
That her youth and beauty never might fade;
And they smiled on heaven, when they saw her
lie

In the stream of life that wandered by.
And she heard a song-she heard it sung,
She kend not where; but sae sweetly it rung,
It fell on her ear like a dream of the morn-
"Oh! 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 glied frae 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 dyed away,
When the sinner has gane to his waesome
doom,

Kilmeny shall smile in eternal bloom!"

They bore her away, she wist not how, For she felt not arm nor rest below; But so swift they waned her through the light, 'Twas like the motion of sound or sight; They seemed to split the gales of air, And yet nor gale nor breeze was there. Unnumbered groves below them grew; They came, they past, and backward flew, Like floods of blossoms gliding on, In moment seen, in moment gone. Oh, never vales to mortal view Appeared like those o'er which they flew, That land to human spirits given,

The lowermost vales of the storied heaven; From whence they can view the world below, And heaven's blue gates with sapphires glowMore glory yet unmeet to know.

They bore her far to a mountain green,
To see what mortal never had seen;

And they seated her high on a purple sward,
And bade her heed what she saw and heard,
And note the changes the spirits wrought;
For now she lived in the land of thought.-
She looked, and she saw nor sun nor skies,
But a crystal dome of a thousand dies;
She looked, and she saw nae land aright,
But an endless whirl of glory and light;
And radiant beings went and came,

Far swifter than wind, or the linkèd flame;
She hid her een frae the dazzling view;
She looked again and the scene was new.

She saw a sun on a summer sky,
And clouds of amber sailing by;
A lovely land beneath her lay,

And that land had glens and mountains gray;
And that land had valleys and hoary piles,
And marlèd seas, and a thousand isles;
Its fields were speckled, its forests green,
And its lakes were all of the dazzling sheen,
Like magic mirrors, where slumbering lay
The sun and the sky and the cloudlet gray,
Which heaved and trembled, and gently swung;
On every shore they seemed to be hung;
For there they were seen on their downward
plain

A thousand times and a thousand again;
In winding lake and placid firth-

Little peaceful heavens in the bosom of earth.

Kilmeny sighed and seemed to grieve,

And a leifu' maiden stood at her knee, With a silver wand and melting eeHer sovereign shield, till love stole in, And poisoned all the fount within.

Then a gruff, untoward bedes-man came,
And hundit the lion on his dame;
And the guardian maid wi' the dauntless ee,
She dropped a tear, and left her knee;
And she saw till the queen frae the lion fled,
Till the bonniest flower of the worid lay dead;
A coffin was set on a distant plain,

And she saw the red blood fall like rain.
Then bonny Kilmeny's heart grew sair,
And she turned away and could look nae mair.

Then the gruff, grim carle girnèd amain, And they trampled him down but he rose again;

And he baited the lion to deeds of weir,
Till he lapped the blood to the kingdom dear;
And, weening his head was danger preef
When crowned with the rose and clover-leaf,
He growled at the carle, and chased him away
To feed wi' the deer on the mountain gray.
He growled at the carle, and he gecked at heaven;
But his mark was set, and his arles given.
Kilmeny a while her een withdrew;
She looked again, and the scene was new.

She saw below her, fair unfurled,
One half of all the glowing world,
Where oceans rolled and rivers ran,
To bound the aims of sinful man.
She saw a people fierce and feil,
Burst frae their bounds like fiends of hell;
There lilies grew, and the eagle flew ;
And she herked on her ravening crew,
Till the cities and towers were wrapt in a blaze,
And the thunder it roared o'er the lands and

the seas.

The widows they wailed, and the red blood ran,
And she threatened an end to the race of man.
She never lened, nor stood in awe,
Till caught by the lion's deadly paw.
Oh! then the eagle swinked for life,
And brainzelled up a mortal strife;
But flew she north, or flew she south,
She met wi' the growl of the lion's mouth.

With a mooted wing and waefu' maen, The eagle sought her eiry again; But lang may she cower in her bloody nest, And lang, lang sleek her wounded breast, Before she sey another flight,

To play wi' the norland lion's might.

But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw,

cleave;

She saw the corn wave on the vale;

She saw the deer run down the dale;
She saw the plaid and the broad claymore,
And the brows that the badge of freedom bore;
And she thought she had seen the land before.

She saw a lady sit on a throne,

The fairest that ever the sun shone on!
A lion licked her hand of milk,
And she held him in a leish of silk,

The singer's voice wad sink away,
And the string of his harp wad cease to play.
But she saw till the sorrows of man were by,
And all was love and harmony;
Till the stars of heaven fell calmly away,
Like the flakes of snaw on a winter's day.

Then Kilmeny begged again to see The friends she had left in her own countrye, To tell of the place where she had been, And the glories that lay in the land unseen;

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 had 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 oh, her beauty was fair to see,
But still and steadfast was her ee!
Such beauty bard may never declare,

For there was no pride nor passion there;
And the soft desire of maidens' 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 hymus unheard to sing,

To suck the flowers and drink the spring.
But wherever her peaceful form appeared,
The wild beasts of the hills were cheered!
The wolf played blythely round the field,
The lordly byson 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,

Oh, then the glen was all in motion!
The wild beasts of the forest came,
Broke from their bughts and faulds the tame,
And goved around, charmed and amazed;
Even the dull cattle crooned and gazed,
And murmured and looked with anxious pain,
For something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard came with the throstle-cock,
The corby left her houf in the rock;
The black-bird alang wi' the eagle flew;
The hind came tripping o'er the dew;
The wolf and the kid their raike began;

And the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret

LOCK THE DOOR, LARISTON. Lock the door, Lariston, lion of Liddisdale, Lock the door, Lariston, Lowther comes on, The Armstrongs are flying,

Their widows are crying,
The Castletown's burning, and Oliver's gone;
Lock the door, Lariston-high on the weather
gleam,

See how the Saxon plumes bob on the sky,
Yeoman and carbineer,
Billman and halberdier;

Fierce is the foray, and far is the cry.

Bewcastle brandishes high his broad scimitar, Ridley is riding his fleet-footed grey,

Hidley and Howard there,

Wandale and WindermereLock the door, Lariston, hold them at bay. Why dost thou smile, noble Elliot of Lariston? Why does the joy-candle gleam in thine eye? Thou bold border ranger Beware of thy danger

Thy foes are relentless, determined, and nigh.

"I've Mangerton, Ogilvie, Raeburn, and Netherby,

Old Sim of Whitram, and all his array;
Come, ali Northumberland,
Teesdale and Cumberland,
Here at the Breaken Tower end shall the fray."
Scowl'd the broad sun o'er the links of green
Liddisdale,

Red as the beacon-light tipp'd he the wold;
Many a bold martial eye
Mirror'd that morning sky,

Never more oped on his orbit of gold!

Shrill was the bugle's note, dreadful the warrior shout,

Lances and halberts in splinters were borne;
Halberd and hauberk then
Braved the claymore in vain,

Buckler and armlet in shivers were shorn.
See how they wane, the proud files of the Win-
dermere,

Howard-ah! woe to thy hopes of the day!
Hear the wide welkin rend,
While the Scots' shouts ascend,
"Elliot of Lariston, Elliot for aye!"

SONGS.

THE SOLDIER'S WIDOW.

Tune-Gilderoy.

AN' art thou fled, my bonny boy,
An' left me here alane!
Wha now will love, or care for me,
When thou art dead an' gane?
Thy father fell in freedom's cause,
With gallant Moor, in Spain:
Now thou art gane, my bonny boy,
An' left me here alane.

I hop'd, when thou wert grown a man,
To trace his looks in thine;
An' saw, wi' joy, thy sparkling eye
Wi' kindling vigour shine.

I thought when I was fail'd, I might
Wi' you an' yours remain;
But thou art fled, my bonny boy,
An' left me here alane.

Now clos'd an' set that sparkling eye!
Thy breast is cauld as clay!

An' a' my hope, an' a' my joy,
Wi' thee are reft away.
An' fain wad I that comely clay
Reanimate again!

But thou art fled, my bonny boy,
An' left me here alane.

The flower now fading on the lea,
Shall fresher rise to view;
The leaf, just fallen from the tree,
The year will soon renew:
But lang may I weep o'er thy grave,
Ere you revive again!

For thou art fled, my bonny boy!
An' left me here alane.

THE FLOWER.

O SOFTLY blow, thou biting blast,
O'er Yarrow's lonely dale;
And spare yon bonny, tender bud,
Exposed to every gale;

Long has she hung her drooping head,
Despairing to survive,

But transient sun-beams, through the cloud,
Still kept my flower alive.

One sweetly scented summer eve

To yonder bower I stray'd; While little birds from every bough

Their music wild convey'd ;

The sun-beam lean'd across the shower,
The rainbow girt the sky;
'Twas then I saw this lovely flower,

And wonder fill'd mine eye.

Her border was the purple tint

Stole from the rising sun;

The whitish feather, from the swan,
Upon her breast was dun:

Her placid smile was love and grace

Must ev'ry bosom win;
The dew-drops glist'ning on her face,
Show'd all was pure within.

But frost, on cold misfortune's wing,
Hath crush'd her into clay;
And ruthless fate hath rudely torn
Each kindred branch away:
That wounded bark will never close,
But bleeding still remain !

How can ye blow, relentless winds,
And nip my flower again?

LORD EGLINTON'S AULD MAN.

THE auld gudeman cam hame at night,
Sair wearied wi' the way;

His looks were like an evening bright,
His hair was siller gray.

He spake o' days, lang past an' gane,
When life beat high in every vein;
When he was foremost on the plain
On every blythsome day.

"Then blythly blush'd the mornin' dawn, An' gay the gloamin' fell;

For sweet content led aye the van,
An' sooth'd the passions well;
Till wounded by a gilded dart,
When Jeanie's een subdued my heart.
I cherish'd ay the pleasing smart,—
Mair sweet than I can tell.

We had our griefs, we had our joys,
In life's uneasy way;

We nourish'd virtuous girls an' boys,
That now are far away:
An' she, my best, my dearest part,
The sharer o' each joy an' smart,
Each wish and weakness o' my heart,
Lies moulderin' in the clay.

The life o' man's a winter day;
Look back, 'tis gone as soon:

But yet his pleasures have the way,
An' fly before 'tis noon.

But conscious virtue still maintains

The honest heart through toils an' pains,

An' hope o' better days remains,

An' hauds the heart aboon."

BONNY MARY.

WHERE Scaur rins wimpling 'mang the rocks
And wheels and boils in mony a linn,
A brisk young shepherd fed his flocks,
Unus'd to guile, to strife, or din;
But love its silken net had thrown
Around his breast so brisk and airy;
And his blue eyes wi' moisture shone
As thus he sung of Bonny Mary.
When o'er the Lowther's haughty head
The morning breaks in streaks sae bonny
I climb the mountain's lonely side,
For quiet rest I get na ony.