Ah! well-known streams! Ah! wonted Alas! misfortune's cloud unkind groves, Still pictured in my mind! Oh! sacred scene of youthful loves, The wild flower strown on summer's The dying music of the grove, And the last elegies of love, Dissolve the soul, and draw the tender tear! Alas! the hospitable hall Where youth and friendship play'd, Wide to the winds a ruin'd wall Projects a death-like shade! The charm is vanish'd from the vales; No voice with virgin whispers hails A stranger to his native bowers: No more Arcadian mountains bloom, Nor Enna valleys breathe perfume, May summer soon o'ercast; And cruel fate's untimely wind All human beauty blast! The wrath of Nature smites our bowers, In silence sad the mourner walks and weeps! Relentless power! whose fated stroke And friendship's covenant fails! Upbraiding forms! a moment's easeO memory! how shall I appease The bleeding shade, the unlaid ghost? What charm can bind the gushing eye? What voice console the incessant sigh, And everlasting longings for the lost? The fancied Eden fades with all its Yet not unwelcome waves the wood flowers. Companions of the youthful scene, Endear'd from earliest days! Snatch'd to the shadows of despair; I stretch my arms; ye vanish into a ! My steps, when innocent and young, I mourn'd the linnet-lover's fate, Condemn'd the widow'd hours to wail. That hides me in its gloom, While lost in melancholy mood I muse upon the tomb. Their chequer'd leaves the branches shed; Whirling in eddies o'er my head, They sadly sigh that winter's near: The warning voice I hear behind That shakes the wood without a wind, And solemn sounds the death-bell of the year. Nor will I court Lethean streams, THE BRAES OF YARROW. "Thy braes were bonnie, Yarrow stream, When first on them I met my lover; Thy braes how dreary, Yarrow stream, When now thy waves his body cover! For ever, now, O Yarrow stream, Thou art to me a stream of sorrow! For never on thy banks shall I Behold my love, the flower of Yarrow. He promised me a milk-white steed, To squire me to his father's towers; Alas, his watery grave, in Yarrow ! Sweet were his words when last me met; My passion I as freely told him! Clasp'd in his arms, I little thought That I should never more behold him! Scarce was he gone, I saw his ghost; It vanish'd with a shriek of sorrow; Thrice did the water-wraith ascend, And gave a doleful groan through Yarrow. His mother from the window looked, The greenwood path to meet her brother: They sought him east, they sought him west, No longer seek him east or west, And search no more the forest thorough! For, wandering in the night so dark, He fell a lifeless corpse in Yarrow. The tear shall never leave my cheek; No other youth shall be my marrow : I'll seek thy body in the stream, And then with thee I'll sleep in Yarrow." The tear did never leave her cheek; No other youth became her marrow; She found his body in the stream, And now with him she sleeps in Yarrow. THE REIGN OF MESSIAH. Behold! the mountain of the Lord In latter days shall rise Above the mountains and the hills, And draw the wondering eyes. To this the joyful nations round, All tribes and tongues, shall flow; Up to the hill of God, they'll say, And to His house we'll go. The beam that shines on Zion hill No strife shall vex Messiah's reign, To ploughshares soon they beat their swords, To pruning-hooks their spears. They sought him all the forest tho- No longer hosts, encountering hosts, rough They only saw the cloud of night, No longer from thy window look; Thou hast no son, thou tender mother! No longer walk, thou lovely maid; Alas, thou hast no more a brother! Their millions slain deplore; They hang the trumpet in the hall, And study war no more. Come then-O come from every land, HECTOR MACNEILL, as his name implies, was of Hebridian extraction, but was born at Rosebank, near Roslin, Edinburghshire, in 1746. He was educated in Stirling, at the Grammar School, under Dr Doig, a well-known scholar and philologist. Here he continued till the age of fourteen, when he went to reside with a relative in Bristol, engaged in the West Indian trade. Young Macneill went to sea, but soon got tired of it; and, on the recommendation of his cousin, he entered the counting-house of a merchant in the island of St Christopher. Here he gave much satisfaction; but what seems to have been a harmless social indiscre-tributed to the Archæologia. tion caused his dismissal, and checked the progress of his commercial advancement. While in charge of a sugar plantation in Jamaica, he wrote a pamphlet in defence of West Indian slavery. He returned home about 1788 with his health impaired, and with little compensation in the shape of fortune. He took his residence in Stirling, and, in 1789, wrote his ballad-story, "The Harp," part i., the legend of which was related by Mr Ramsay of Ochtertyre. A prospect of advantage for him having opened in the East Indies, he proceeded thither; but, as he explains in a note to his poem of "The Scottish Muse," "an unexpected change in the administration at home blasted all the author's fair prospects in India." The only fruit of his voyage to India was a description of the caves of Elephanta which he con | In 1795, while resident in Edinburgh, he wrote his popular ballad-tale of "Will and Jean," which he dedicated to his friend and teacher, Dr Doig. Its success was very remarkable, having, as he himself relates, gone through four WILL AND JEAN. PART I. Wha was ance like Willie Gairlace, Wha in neighbouring town or farm? teen editions within a twelvemonth, or upwards of 20,000 copies. It was evidently suggested by Wilson's prior published "Watty and Meg," and is, it must be confessed, inferior in dramatic vigour to that graphic but less sentimental sketch. It has also a simple pathos and moral purpose that its prototype wants, and has therefore had the advantage in popularity over the superior piece of poetic art. In 1796, Macneill went to Jamaica for the benefit of his health, and returned considerably But to friends wha had their handfu', improved. On the death of John Graham, Esq., of Jamaica, in 1798, the poet was left an annuity of £100 a-year, which, with his literary earnings, kept him in comparative comfort, and enabled him to mix in the literary society of Edinburgh. He was for some time editor of the Scots Magazine; and latterly he wrote tales with a view to reform what he conceived to be the social defects of his He There is little original in Macneill's writing, either in the manner or the matter; and the specimens we give comprehend almost all of his poems that can be said to have much merit. The songs are excellent, and maintain their popularity as part of our lyric treasures. (10) Throw the sledge, or toss the bar? Warm his heart, and mild as manfu', Purse and service aye were free. Whan he first saw Jeanie Miller, Wha' wi' Jeanie could compare? Saft her smile raise like May morning, At ilk place she bore the bell ;- Such was Jean whan Will first mawing, Kept her on his manly breast. Light he bare her, pale as ashes, Cross the meadow, fragrant green! Such was Will, whan poor Jean, fainting, In a howm,' whase bonnie burnie Whimperin' rowed its crystal flood, Up the gavel end thick spreading Down below, a flowery meadow Joined the burnie's rambling line; Here it was, that Howe the widow This same day set up her sign. Brattling down the brae, and near its 'Godsake! drinking; (Wha can this new comer be?') 'Hoot!' quo' Tam, 'there's drouth in thinking Let's in, Will, and syne we'll see.' Nae mair time they took to speak or Think of ought but reaming jugs; Till three times in humming 3 liquor Ilk lad deeply laid his lugs. Slockened now, refreshed and talking, In came Meg (weel skilled to please), 'Sirs! ye're surely tired wi' walkingYe maun taste my bread and cheese.' Thanks,' quo' Will;-'I canna tarry, Pick mirk 4 night is setting in; Jean, poor thing's ! her lane, and eery— I maun to the road and rin.' |