But, while yon silent moon doth shine,
Sae lang as I ha'e breath to draw,
I'll mind the gem o' youth an' love,
The bonnie lass of Turrit Ha'!

Robert Nicoll.

Tweed, the River.

TO THE RIVER TWEED.

TWEED! a stranger, that with wandering feet O'er hill and dale has journeyed many a mile (If so his weary thoughts he might beguile), Delighted turns thy beauteous scenes to greet. The waving branches that romantic bend O'er thy tall banks, a soothing charm bestow; The murmurs of thy wand'ring wave below Seem to his ear the pity of a friend. Delightful stream! though now along thy shore, When spring returns in all her wonted pride, The shepherd's distant pipe is heard no more, Yet here with pensive peace could I abide, Far from the stormy world's tumultuous roar, To muse upon thy banks at eventide.

William Lisle Bowles.

TWEEDSIDE.

AT beauties does Flora disclose!

WHAT
How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed!

Yet Mary's, still sweeter than those,
Both nature and fancy exceed.
Nor daisy, nor sweet-blushing rose,
Not all the gay flowers of the field,
Not Tweed gliding gently through those,
Such beauty and pleasure does yield.

The warblers are heard in the grove,

The linnet, the lark, and the thrush, The blackbird, and sweet-cooing dove, With music enchant every bush. Come, let us go forth to the mead,

Let us see how the primroses spring;
We'll lodge in some village on Tweed,
And love while the feathered folks sing.

How does my love pass the long day?
Does Mary not tend a few sheep?
Do they never carelessly stray,

While happily she lies asleep?

Should Tweed's murmurs lull her to rest,
Kind nature indulging my bliss,
To ease the soft pains of my breast,
'I'd steal an ambrosial kiss.

"T is she does the virgins excel;
No beauty with her may compare ;

Love's graces around her do dwell;
She's fairest where thousands are fair.
Say, charmer, where do thy flocks stray?
O, tell me at morn where they feed?
Shall I seek them on sweet-winding Tay?
Or the pleasanter banks of the Tweed?
Robert Crawford.

SONNETS ON THE SCENERY OF THE TWEED.

I.

S we had been in heart, now linked in hand,

AS

Green Learmonth and the Cheviots left behind,
Homeward 't was ours by pastoral Tweed to wind,
Through the Arcadia of the Border-land:
Vainly would words portray my feelings, when
(A dreary chasm of separation past)

Fate gave thee to my vacant arms at last,
And made me the most happy man of men.
Accept these trifles, lovely and beloved,
And haply, in the days of future years,
While the far past to memory reappears,
Thou may'st retrace these tablets not unmoved,
Catherine! whose holy constancy was proved
By all that deepest tries, and most endears.

II.

WARK CASTLE.

EMBLEM of strength, which time hath quite subdued, Scarcely on thy green mount the eye may trace

Those girding walls which made thee once a place
Of succor, in old days of deadly feud.

Yes! thou wert once the Scotch marauder's dread;
And vainly did the Roxburgh shafts assail
Thy moated towers, from which they fell like hail;
While waved Northumbria's pennon o'er thy head.
Thou wert the work of man, and so hast passed
Like those who piled thee; but the features still
Of steadfast nature all unchanged remain;

Still Cheviot listens to the northern blast,

And the blue Tweed winds murmuring round thy hill; While Carham whispers of the slaughtered Dane.

III.

DRYBURGH ABBEY.

BENEATH, Tweed murmured amid the forests green:
And through thy beech-tree and laburnum boughs,
A solemn ruin, lovely in repose,

Dryburgh! thine ivied walls were grayly seen:
Thy court is now a garden, where the flowers
Expand in silent beauty, and the bird,
Flitting from arch to arch, alone is heard
To cheer with song the melancholy bowers.
Yet did a solemn pleasure fill the soul,

As through thy shadowy cloistral cells we trode,
To think, hoar pile! that once thou wert the abode
Of men, who could to solitude control

Their hopes, yea! from ambition's pathways stole,

To give their whole lives blamelessly to God!

IV.

MELROSE ABBEY.

SUMMER was on thee, the meridian light,

And, as we wandered through thy columned aisles,
Decked all thy hoar magnificence with smiles,
Making the rugged soft, the gloomy bright.
Nor was reflection from us far apart,

As clomb our steps thy lone and lofty stair,
Till, gained the summit, ticked in silent air
Thine ancient clock, as 't were thy throbbing heart.
Monastic grandeur and baronial pride

Subdued, the former half, the latter quite,
Pile of King David! to thine altar's site,
Full many a footstep guides and long shall guide;
Where they repose, who met not, save in fight,
And Douglas sleeps with Evers, side by side!

V.

ABBOTSFORD.

THE calm of evening o'er the dark pine-wood
Lay with an aureate glow, as we explored
Thy classic precincts, hallowed Abbotsford!
And at thy porch in admiration stood:

We felt thou wert the work, th' abode of him
Whose fame hath shed a lustre on our age,
The mightiest of the mighty!-o'er whose page
Thousands shall hang, until Time's eye grow dim;
And then we thought, when shall have passed away