And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouthed heads upon the spouts
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors through her pulses. the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less through all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flowered clder-thicket from the field
Gleam through the Gothic archways in the wall.

Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity:
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth,
The fatal by word of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peeped-but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivelled into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him-So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancelled a sense misused;
And she, that knew not, passed: and all at once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless

LOVE OF COUNTRY.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.-"LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL." Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well:
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High through his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band

That knits me to thy rugged strand!

Still as I view each well-known scene,

Think what is now, and what hath been,

Seems as, to me, of all bereft,

Sole friends thy woods and streams were left; And thus I love them better still,

Even in extremity of ill.

By Yarrow's streams still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The bard may draw his parting groan.

THE BLIND LINNET.

ROBERT BUCHANAN.

The sempstress's linnet sings
At the window opposite me;--
It feels the sun on its wings
Though it cannot see.

Can a bird have thoughts? May be.

The sempstress is sitting,

High o'er the humming street, The little blind linnet is flitting Between the sun and her seat. All day long

She stitches wearily there, And I know she is not young, And I know she is not fair; For I watch her head bent down Throughout the dreary day,

And the thin meek hair o' brown Is threaded with silver gray; And now and then, with a start At the fluttering of her heart,

She lifts her eyes to the bird, And I see in the dreary place The gleam of a thin white face, And my heart is stirr'd.

But the sempstress can see
How dark things be;

How black through the town

The stream is flowing; And tears fall down

Upon her sewing. So at times she tries,

When her trouble is stirr'd,

To close her eyes,

And be blind like the bird. And then, for a minute,

As sweet things seem, As to the linnet

Piping in his dream! For she feels on her brow The sunlight glowing, And hears nought now

But a river flowingA broad and beautifui river, Washing fields of corn,

Flowing for ever

Through the woods where she was born

And a wild bird winging

Over her head, and singing!

And she can smell

The musk and the muskatel

That beside her grow,

And, unaware,

She murmurs an old air

That she used to know!

HAPPINESS.

ALEXANDER POPE-"ESSAY ON MAN."

O Happiness! our being's end and aim. Good, pleasure, ease, content, whate'er thy name? That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die, Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, O'erlooked, seen double, by the fool, and wise. Plant of celestial seed! if dropt below, Say, in what mortal soil thou design'st to grow? Fair op'ning to some Court's propitious shine, Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine? Twined with the wreaths that Parnassian laurels yield,

Or reaped in iron harvests of the field?

Where grows?-where grows it not? If vain our toil,

We ought to blame the culture, not the soil.
Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere,
'Tis nowhere to be found, or ev'rywhere:
'Tis never to be bought, but always free,

And fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee. Ask of the learned the way? The learned are blind;

This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these;

Some sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some swelled to gods, confess e'en virtue vain;
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in every thing, or doubt of all.

Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?

Take Nature's path, and mad opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well; And mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense, and common ease, Remember, man, "the Universal Cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws;" And makes what happiness we justly call Subsist not in the good of one, but all. There's not a blessing individuals find, But some way leans and hearkens to the kind: No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride, No cavern hermit, rest self-satisfied: Who most to shun or hate mankind pretenu, Seek an admirer, or who would fix a friend: Abstract what others feel, what others hinx, All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink· Each has its share; and who would more obtain, Shall find, the pleasure pays not half .ne pain. Order is heaven's first law; and this confest, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest, More rich, more wise; but vho infers from hence That such are happier, shocks all common sense, Heav'n to mankind impartial we confess,

If all are equal in their happiness:

But mutual wants this happiness increase;

All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king,

In who obtair defence, or who defend,

In him who is, or him who finds a friend:

Heav'n breathes through ev'ry member of the whole
One common blessing, as one common soul.
But fortune's gifts if each alike possest,
And each were equal, must not all contest?
If then to all men happiness was meant,
God in externals could not place content.

Fortune her gifts may variously dispose,
And these be happy called, unhappy those;
But Heav'n's just balance equal will appear,
While those are placed in hope, and these in fear:
Not present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better, or of worse.
Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies?
Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise,
Know, all the good that individuals find,
Or God and nature meant to mere mankind,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, oh Virtue! peace is all thy own.

The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain:

But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

Who risk the most, that take wrong means, or right?
Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?
Count all the advantage prosp'rous vice attains
'Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains:
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they must want, which is, to pass for good.
Oh, blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy bliss to vice, to virtue woe!

Who sees and follows that great scheme the best,
Best knows the blessing, and will most be blest.
But fools the good alone unhappy call,
For ills or accidents that chance to all.
See, Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just!
See god-like Tureene prostrate on the dust?
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife!
Was this their virtue, or contempt of life?
Say, was it virtue, more though Heaven ne'r gave,
Lamented Digby! sunk thee to the grave?
Tell me, if virtue made the son expire,
Why, full of days, and honor, lives the sire?
Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath,
When nature sickened, and each gale was death?
Or why so long (in life if long can be)
Lent Heaven a parent to the poor and me?
What makes all physical or moral ill?
There deviates Nature, and there wanders Will.
God sends not ill; if rightly understood,
Or partial ill is universal good,

Or change admits, or nature lets it fall;
Short, and but rare, till Man improved it all.
We just as wisely might of Heaven complain
That righteous Able was destroyed by Cain,
As that the virtuous son is ill at ease
When his lewd father gave the dire disease
Think we, like some weak prince, the Eternal Cause
Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws?

Shall burning Ætna, if a sage requires.
Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?

On air or sea new motions be imprest,
Oh, blameless Bethel! to relieve thy br、st?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease, if you go by?
Or some old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres head reserve the hanging wall?
But still this world (so fitted for the knave)
Contents us not. A better shall we have?
A kingdom of the just then let it be:
But first consider how those just agree,
The good must merit God's peculiar care;
But who, but God, can tell us who they are?
One thinks on Calvin Heav'n's own spirit fell;
Another deems him instrument of hell,
If Calvin feel Heaven's blessing, or its rod,
This cries there is, and that, there is no God.
What shocks one part will edify the rest,
Nor with one system can they all be blest.

And which more blest? who chained his country, say, Or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day?

"But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed." What then? Is the reward of virtue bread? That, vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil; The knave deserves it, when he tills the soil, The knave deserves it, when he tempts the main, Where, folly fights for kings, or dives for gain. The good man may be weak, be indolent; Nor is his claim to plenty, but content. But grant him riches, your demand is o'er? "No-shall the good want health, the good want power?"

Add health, and power, and every earthly thing,
"Why bounded power? why private? why no king?”
Nay, why external for internal giv'n?

Why is not man a god, and earth a heav'n?
Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive
God gives enough, while He has more to give;
Immense the power, immense were the demand;
Say, at what part of nature will they stand?

What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize. A better would you
fix?
Then give humility a coach and six,
Justice a conqueror's sword, or truth a gown,
Or public spirit its great cure, a crown.
Weak, foolish man! will Heav'n reward us there
With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?
The boy and man an individual makes,
Yet sighest thou now for apples and for cakes?
Go, like the Indian, in another life
Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife,
As well as dream such trifles are assigned,
As toys and empires, for a god-like mind.
Rewards, that either would to virtue bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing:
How oft by these at sixty are undone
The virtues of a saint at twenty-one!

To whom can riches give repute, or trust,
Content, or pleasure, but the good and just?
Judges and Senates have been bought for gold,
Esteem and love were never to be sold.

O fool! to think God hates the worthy mind
The lover and the love of human-kind,
Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.

Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.
"What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl?"
I'll tell you, friend; a wise man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,