Some close behind, some side by side,
Like clouds in stormy weather,

They run, and cry, "Nay let us die,
And let us die together."

A Lake was near; the shore was steep;

There never Foot had been ;

They ran, and with a desperate leap
Together plung'd into the deep,

Nor ever more were seen.

Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully,

The Solitude of Binnorie.

The Stream that flows out of the Lake, As through the glen it rambles, Repeats a moan o'er moss and stone, For those seven lovely Campbells. Seven little Islands, green and bare, Have risen from out the deep:

The Fishers say, those Sisters fair

By Faeries are all buried there,
And there together sleep.

Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully,

The Solitude of Binnorie.

To H. C.,

SIX YEARS OLD.

O Thou! whose fancies from afar are brought;

Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, And fittest to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; Thou Faery Voyager! that dost float

In such clear water, that thy Boat

May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;

Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,

Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;

O blessed Vision! happy Child!

That art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality;

And grief, uneasy Lover! never rest

But when she sate within the touch of thee.

Oh! too industrious folly!

Oh! vain and causeless melancholy!

Nature will either end thee quite;

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,

Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young Lamb's heart among the full-grow

flocks.

What hast Thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of tomorrow?

Thou art a Dew-drop, which the morn brings

forth,

Not doom'd to jostle with unkindly shocks;

Or to be trail'd along the soiling earth;

A Gem that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.

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