Ballade of the Tweed.

THE ferox rins in rough Loch Awe,
A weary cry frae ony toun;

The Spey, that loups o'er linn and fa',
They praise a' ither streams aboon;
They boast their braes o' bonny Doon :
Gie me to hear the ringing reel,
Where shilfas sing and cushats croon,
By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!

There's Ettrick, Meggat, Ail, and a',
Where trout swim thick in May and June;
Ye'll see them take in showers o' snaw
Some blinking, cauldrife April noon :
Rax ower the palmer and march-broun,
And syne we'll show a bonny creel,
In spring or simmer, late or soon,
By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!

There's mony a water, great or sma',
Gaes singing in his siller tune,

Through glen and heugh, and hope and shaw,

Beneath the sun-licht or the moon :

But set us in our fishing-shoon

Between the Caddon-burn and Peel,
And syne we'll cross the heather broun
By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!

ENVOY.

Deil take the dirty, trading loon
Wad gar the water ca' his wheel,
And drift his dyes and poisons doun

By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!

ANDREW LANG.

[From The Last Cast.]

BRIEF are men's days at best; perchance

I waste my own, who have not seen

The castled palaces of France

Shine on the Loire in summer green.

And clear and fleet Eurotas still,

You tell me, laves his reedy shore,

And flows beneath his fabled hill
Where Dian drave the chase of yore.

And "like a horse unbroken " yet

The yellow stream with rush and foam, 'Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet, Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome!

I may not see them, but I doubt,
If seen I'd find them half so fair

As ripples of the rising trout

That feed beneath the elms of Yair.

Nay, Spring I'd meet by Tweed or Ail,
And Summer by Loch Assynt's deep,
And Autumn in that lonely vale

Where wedded Avons westward sweep.

Or where, amid the empty fields,
Among the bracken of the glen,
Her yellow wreath October yields,
To crown the crystal brows of Ken.

A. LANG.

[From Beaver Brook.]

WARM noon brims full the valley's cup,

The aspen's leaves are scarce astir ;

Only the little mill sends up

Its busy, never-ceasing burr. . . .

No mountain torrent's strength is here;

Sweet Beaver, child of forest still,

Heaps its small pitcher to the ear,
And gently waits the miller's will.

Swift slips Undine along the race
Unheard, and then, with flashing bound,
Floods the dull wheel with light and grace,
And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round.

The miller dreams not at what cost

The quivering mill stones hum and whirl,

Nor how for every turn are tost
Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.

But Summer cleared my happier eyes
With drops of some celestial juice,
To see how Beauty underlies
Forevermore each form of Use.

And more methought I saw that flood,
Which now so dull and darkling steals,
Thick, here and there, with human blood,
To turn the world's laborious wheels.

No more than doth the miller there,
Shut in our various cells, do we
Know with what waste of beauty rare

Moves every day's machinery.

JAMES RUSSEll Lowell.

[From Songs of the Summer Nights, ii.]

MY boat glides with the gliding stream,

Following adown its breast

One flowing mirrored amber gleam,

The death-smile of the west.

The river flows: the sky is still;
No ceaseless quest it knows :
Thy bosom swells, thy fair eyes fill
At sight of such repose.

The ripples flow: unmoving sit
The stars above the night,

In shade and gleam the waters flit:

Yon pearly path, how bright!

GEORGE MACDONALD.

[From The Water Tarantella.]

THE wind blows low on the fields and hedges,
There is a murmur amid the sedges,

A low sweet sound where the water gushes
Forth from the grass amid the rushes;

It is a streamlet small and young,

It loves to dally the mosses among,

It trickles slowly,

It whispers lowly,

On its breast the thistle drops its down,
The water-lily

So white and stilly

Sleeps in its lap till its leaves grow brown.

We will follow thee where it flows

It leaves the sedges dank behind,

And on its fringe a willow shows
Its silvery leaflets to the wind;

And a brook comes down from far away,
And babbles into it all the day;
And both together creep through meads
Where the shy plover hides and feeds,