THE SHEPHERD'S SON. THE gowan glitters on the sward, And Colley on my plaid keeps ward, O no! sad and slow! I hear nae welcome sound; The shadow of our trysting bush, It wears sae slowly round. My sheep-bell tinkles from the west, My lambs are bleating near; But still the sound that I lo❜e best Alack! I canna hear. O no! sad and slow! The shadow lingers still, I hear below the water roar, The mill with clacking din; And Lucky scolding frae her door, To bring the bairnies in. O no sad and slow! These are nae sounds for me; The shadow of our trysting bush, THE SHEPHERD'S SON. I coft yestreen frae chapman Tam And promised, when our trysting cam, To tie it round her brow. O no! sad and slow! The time it winna pass; The shadow of that weary thorn Is tethered on the grass. O now I see her on the way! O no! 'tis not so! 'Tis glaumrie I hae seen; The shadow of the hawthorn bush My book of grace I'll try to read, O no! sad and slow! The time will ne'er be gane; The shadow of the trysting bush Is fixed like ony stane. JOANNA BAillie. THE LORELEI. I KNOW not what it presages, This heart with sadness fraught: "Tis a tale of the olden ages, That will not from my thought. The air grows cool, and darkles; There sits, in soft reclining, A maiden wondrous fair, With a comb of gold she combs it; The sailor shudders, as o'er him The strain comes floating by ; He sees not the cliffs before him, He only looks on high. WITHOUT AND WITHIN. Ah! round him the dark waves, flinging My coachman, in the moonlight there, As I could do, but only more. WITHOUT AND WITHIN. Flattening his nose against the pane, He sees me to the supper go, He thinks how happy is my arm, 'Neath its white-gloved and jewelled load, And wishes me some dreadful harm, Hearing the merry corks explode. Meanwhile I inly curse the bore Of hunting still the same old coon, And envy him, outside the door, In golden quiets of the moon. The winter wind is not so cold As the bright smiles he sees me win, Nor the host's oldest wine so old As our poor gabble watery, thin. I envy him the ungyved prance By which his freezing feet he warms, And drag my lady's-chains and dance, The galley-slave of dreary forms. |