KIRKE WHITE.

The cold turf altar of the dead;

My grave shall be in yon lone spot,

Where as I lie, by all forgot,

A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed.

ODE TO DISAPPOINTMENT.

COME, Disappointment, come!

Not in thy terrors clad;

Come in thy meekest, saddest guise;
Thy chastening rod but terrifies

The restless and the bad.

But I recline

Beneath thy shrine,

And round my brow resign'd thy peaceful cypress twine.

Though Fancy flies away

Before thy hollow tread,

Yet Meditation, in her cell,

Hears with faint eye the ling'ring knell,

That tells her hopes are dead;

And though the tear

By chance appear,

Yet she can smile, and say, My all was not laid here!

What is this passing scene?

A peevish April day!

A little sun, a little rain,

And then night sweeps along the plain,

And all things fade away.

Man (soon discuss'd)

Yields up his trust,

And all his hopes and fears lie with him in the dust.

ODE TO DISAPPOINTMENT.

Oh, what is Beauty's power?

It flourishes and dies;

Will the cold earth its silence break,

To tell how soft, how smooth a cheek

Beneath its surface lies?

Mute, mute is all

O'er Beauty's fall;

Her praise resounds no more when mantled in her pall.

The most belov'd on earth

Not long survives to-day;

So music past is obsolete,

And yet 'twas sweet, 'twas passing sweet,
But now 'tis gone away.

Thus does the shade

In memory fade,

When in forsaken tomb the form belov'd is laid.

Then, since this world is vain,

And volatile, and fleet,

Why should I lay up earthly joys

Where rust corrupts, and moth destroys,

And cares and sorrows eat?

Why fly from ill

With cautious skill,

When soon this hand will freeze, this throbbing heart be still?

Come, Disappointment, come !

Thou art not stern to me;

Sad monitress! I own thy sway,
A votary sad in early day,

I bend my knee to thee.

From sun to sun

My race will run;

I only bow, and say, My God, Thy will be done!

THE sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill,
In Ettrick's vale, is sinking sweet;

THE SUN UPON THE WEIRDLAW HILL.

The westland wind is husht and still,

The lake lies sleeping at my feet. Yet not the landscape to mine eye

Bears those sweet hues that once it bore; Though Evening, with her richest dye,

Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick shore.

With listless look along the plain,

I see Tweed's silver current glide,

And coldly mark the holy fane

Of Melrose rise in ruin'd pride.

The quiet lake, the balmy air,

The hill, the stream, the tower, the treeAre they still sweet as once they were, Or is the dreary change in me?

Alas! the warp'd and broken board,
How can it bear the painter's dye?
The harp of strain'd and tuneless chord,
How to the minstrel's skill reply?
To aching eyes each landscape lours,

To feverish pulse each gale blows chill;

And Araby, or Eden's bowers,

Were barren as this moorland hill.

THEY parted, and alone he lay;
Clare drew her from the sight away,

Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan,
And half he murmur'd,-"Is there none,

Of all my halls have nurst,

Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring Of blessed water from the spring,

To slake my dying thirst?"