"O shame to knighthood strange and foul! "Go doff the bonnet from thy brow, "And shroud thee in the monkish cowl,

"Which best befits thy sullen brow.

"Not so, by high Dunlathmon's fire,

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Thy heart was froze to faith and joy, "When gaily rung thy raptured lyre, "To wanton Morna's melting eye."

--

Wild stared the Minstrel's eyes of flame,
And high his sable locks arose,

And quick his colour went and came,

66

"And thou! when by the blazing oak

"I lay, to her and love resign'd,

Say, rode ye on the eddying smoke,

" Or sail'd ye on the midnight wind?

"Not thine a race of mortal blood,

"Nor old Glengyle's pretended line; Thy dame, the Lady of the Flood,

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Thy sire, the Monarch of the Mine.”—

He mutter'd thrice St. Oran's rhyme,

*

And thrice St. Fillan's powerful prayer,

Then turn'd him to the Eastern clime,

And sternly shook his coal-black hair:

And bending o'er his harp, he flung
His wildest witch-notes on the wind,
And loud, and high, and strange, they rung,
As many a magic change they find.

Tall wax'd the Spirit's altering form,
Till to the roof her stature grew,
Then mingling with the rising storm,
With one wild yell away she flew.

Rain beats, hail rattles, whirlwinds tear,
The slender hut in fragments flew,

But not a lock of Moy's loose hair
Was waved by wind, or wet by dew.

Wild mingling with the howling gale,
Loud bursts of ghastly laughter rise,
High o'er the Minstrel's head they sail,
And die amid the northern skies.

* I know nothing of St. Fillan, but that he has given his name to many chapels, holy fountains, &c. in Scotland.

The voice of thunder shook the wood,

As ceased the more than mortal yell, And spattering foul a shower of blood, Upon the hissing firebrands fell.

Next dropp'd from high a mangled arm, The fingers strain'd an half-drawn blade: And last, the life-blood streaming warm, Torn from the trunk, a gasping head.

Oft o'er that head, in battling field,

Stream'd the proud crest of high Benmore; That arm the broad claymore could wield, Which dyed the Teith with Saxon gore.

Woe to Moneira's sullen rills!
Woe to Glenfinlas' dreary glen!

There never son of Albin's hills

Shall draw the hunter's shaft agen!

E'en the tired pilgrim's burning feet

At noon shall shun that sheltering den, Lest, journeying in their rage,

he meet

The wayward Ladies of the Glen.

And we-behind the chieftain's shield
No more shall we in safety dwell;
None leads the people to the field—
And we the loud lament must swell.

O hone a rie! O hone a rie!

The pride of Albin's line is o'er;
And fallen Glenartney's stateliest tree,

We ne'er shall see Lord Ronald more!

*The simple tradition upon which the preceding stanzas are founded, runs as follows. While two Highland hunters were passing the night in a solitary bathy (a hut built for the purpose of hunting), and making merry over their venison and whisky, one of them expressed a wish that they had pretty lasses to complete their party. The words were scarcely uttered, when two beautiful young women, habited in green, entered the hut, dancing and singing. One of the hunters was seduced by the syren who attached herself particularly to him, to leave the hut: the other remained, and, suspicious of the fair seducers, continued to play upon a trump, or Jew's harp, some strain consecrated to the Virgin Mary. Day at length came, and the temptress vanished. Searching in the forest, he found the bones of his unfortunate friend, who had been torn to pieces and devoured by the Fiend into whose toils he had fallen. The place was, from thence, called the Glen of the Green Women.

No. XXI.

THE EVE OF SAINT JOHN.

ORIGINAL.

WALTER SCOTT.

Smaylho'me, or Smallholm Tower, the scene of the following Ballad, is situated on the northern boundary of Roxburghshire, among a cluster of wild rocks, called Sandiknow-Crags, the property of Hugh Scott, Esq. of Harden. The tower is a high square building, surrounded by an outer wall, now ruinous. The circuit of the outer court being defended, on three sides, by a precipice and morass, is only accessible from the west, by a steep and rocky path. The apartments, as usual, in a Border Keep, or fortress, are placed one above another, and communicate by a narrow stair; on the roof are two bartizans, or platforms, for defence or pleasure. The inner door of the tower is wood, the outer an iron grate; the distance between them being nine feet, the thickness, namely, of the wall. From the elevated situation of Smaylho'me Tower, it is seen many miles in every direction. Among the crags by which it is surrounded, one more eminent is called the Watchfold, and is said to have been the station of a beacon in the times of war with England. Without the tower-court is a ruined Chapel.

THE Baron of Smaylho'me rose with day,

He spurr'd his courser on,

Without stop or stay, down the rocky way
That leads to Brotherstone.