PLEASURES OF THE PEDESTRIAN.

No sad vacuities his heart annoy ;-Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy; For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale; He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale;

For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn,
And peeps the far-off spire,his evening bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head.
And dear the green-sward to his velvet tread ;
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming
eye?

Upward he looks-and calls it luxury;
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend,
In every babbling brook he finds a friend,
While chast'ning thoughts of sweetest use,
bestowed

By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road.
Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower.
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
He views the Sun uplift his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre;
Blesses the Moon that comes with kindest ray
To light him shaken by his viewless way.
With bashful fear no cottage-children steal

maids

steeps

Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow
deeps.
To towns, whose shades of no rude sound
complain,
To ringing team unknown and grating wain,
To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's
bound,

Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or from the bending rocks obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whitened wave their shadows
fling;

Wild round the steeps the little pathway twines,

And Silence loves its purple roof of vines. The viewless lingerer hence, at evening, sees From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;

Tend the small harvest of their garden glades, Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view Stretch, o'er the pictured mirror, broad and blue,

Tracking the yellow sun from steep to steep, As up the opposing hills, with tortoise-foot, they creep.

Here half a village shines, in gold arrayed,
Bright as the moon; half hides itself in shade.
From the dark sylvan roofs the restless spire
Inconstant glancing mounts like springing fire.
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the waves below.
Slow glides the sail along th' illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar.
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amorous music on the water dies.

How bless'd, delicious scene! the eye that

greets

Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats; Th' unwearied sweep of wood thy cliffs that scales;

The never-ending waters of thy vales;
The cots, those dim religious groves em-
bower,

Or, under rocks that from the water tower
Insinuated, sprinkling all the shore,
Each with his household-boat beside the door,
Whose flaccid sails in forms fantastic droop,
Bright'ning the gloom where thick the forests
stoop;

-Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky,

Thy towns, like swallows' nests that cleave on high;

That glimmer hoar in eve's last light, descry'd

Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side, Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods

While Evening's solemn bird melodious Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods,

Plunge with the Russ embrowned by Terror's breath,

Where danger roofs the narrow walks of death;

By floods, that, thundering from their dizzy height,

Swell more gigantic on the stedfast sight;
Black drizzling crags, that beaten by the din,
Vibrate, as if a voice complained within;
Bare stecps, where Desolation stalks afraid,
Unstedfast, by a blasted yew upstayed;
By cells whose image, trembling as he prays,
Awe-struck, the kneeling peasant scarce

surveys;

Loose hanging rocks the Day's bless'd eye that hide,

And crosses reared to Death on every side, Which with cold kiss Devotion planted near, And bending water'd with the human tear; That faded silent from her upward eye, Unmoved with each rude form of Danger nigh,

Fixed on the anchor left by Him who saves Alike in whelming snows and roaring waves.

On as we move a softer prospect opes, Calm huts, and lawns between, and sylvan slopes,

While mists, suspended on the expiring gale, Moveless o'er-hang the deep secluded vale, The beams of evening, slipping soft between, Light up of tranquil joy a sober scene. Winding its dark-green wood and emerald glade,

The still vale lengthens underneath the

shade; While in soft gloom the scattering bowers recede,

Green dewy lights adorn the freshened mead, On the low brown wood-huts delighted sleep Along the brightened gloom reposing deep. While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull,

And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull, In solemn shapes before the admiring eye Dilated hang the misty pines on high, Huge convent - domes with pinnacles and towers,

'Mid stormy vapours ever driving by, Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry; Where hardly given the hopeless waste to cheer,

Denied the bread of life the foodful ear,
Dwindles the pear on autumn's latest spray,
And apple sickens pale in summer's ray;
Ev'n here content has fixed her smiling reign
With Independence, child of high Disdain.
Exulting 'mid the winter of the skies,
Shy as the jealous chamois, freedom flies,
And often grasps her sword, and often eyes:
Her crest a bough of Winter's bleakest pine,
Strange weeds and alpine plants her helm
entwine,

showers.

From such romantic dreams my soul awake, Lo! Fear looks silent down on Uri's lake; Where by the unpathwayed margin still and dread

Was never heard the plodding peasant's tread: Tower like a wall the naked rocks, or reach Far o'er the secret water dark with beach; More high, to where creation seems to end, Shade above shade the desert pines ascend. Yet, with his infants, man undaunted creeps, And hangs his small wood-hut upon the steeps, Where'er, below, amid the savage scene Peeps out a little speck of smiling green.

blast.

And sure there is a secret Power that reigns

Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes,

Nought but the herds that pasturing upward

creep

Hung dim-discover'd from the dangerous steep,

Or summer-hamlet, flat and bare, on high
Suspended, 'mid the quiet of the sky.
How still! no irreligious sound or sight
Rouses the soul from her severe delight.
An idle voice the sabbath-region fills
Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills,
Broke only by the melancholy sound,
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine- woods steady
sugh;

The solitary heifer's deepen'd low;
Or rumbling heard remote of falling snow;
Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage
joy.

tread

Spring up, his choicest wealth around him spread,

The pastoral Swiss begins the cliffs to scale,
To silence leaving the deserted vale,
Mounts, where the verdure leads, from stage

to stage,
And pastures on, as in the Patriarch's age:
O'er lofty heights serene and still they go,
And hear the rattling thunder far below.
They cross the chasmy torrent's foam-lit bed,
Rocked on the dizzy larch's narrow tread;
Or steal beneath loose mountains, half de-

terr'd, That sigh and shudder to the lowing herd. -I see him, up the midway cliff he creeps To where a scanty knot of verdure peeps, Thence down the steep a pile of grass he throws,

waste,

And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste.

Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled Usurping where the fairest herbage smiled; Nor Hunger forced the herds from pastures

Gay lark of hope thy silent song resume! Fair smiling lights the purpled hills illume! Soft gales and dews of life's delicious morn, And thou, lost fragrance of the heart, return! Soon flies the little joy to man allowed, And grief before him travels like a cloud: For come Diseases on, and Penury's rage, Labour and Care, and Pain, and dismal Age, "Till, hope-deserted, long in vain his breath Implores the dreadful untried sleep of Death. 'Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine

Between interminable tracts of pine,
A Temple stands; which holds an awful shrine,
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
On the mute Image and the troubled walls :
Pale, dreadful faces round the shrine appear,
Abortive Joy, and Hope that works in fear;
While strives a secret Power to hush the
crowd,

yore;

rights aloud.

fane.

'Mid muttering prayers all sounds of torment

meet,

Dire clap of hands, distracted chafe of feet; While loud and dull ascends the weeping cry, Surely in other thoughts contempt may die. If the sad grave of human ignorance bear One flower of hope-Oh, pass and leave it there.

ELLEN IRWIN,

OR THE BRAES OF KIRTLE.

FAIR Ellen Irwin, when she sate
Upon the Braes of Kirtle,
Was lovely as a Grecian Maid
Adorned with wreaths of myrtle.
Young Adam Bruce beside her lay;
And there did they beguile the day
With love and gentle speeches,
Beneath the budding beeches.

From many Knights and many Squires
The Bruce had been selected;
And Gordon, fairest of them all,
By Ellen was rejected.

Sad tidings to that noble Youth!

For it may be proclaimed with truth,
If Bruce hath loved sincerely,
That Gordon loves as dearly.

But what is Gordon's beauteous face?
And what are Gordon's crosses
To them who sit by Kirtle's Braes
Upon the verdant mosses?
Alas that ever he was born!

The Gordon, couched behind a thorn,
Sees them and their caressing,
Beholds them blest and blessing.

Proud Gordon cannot bear the thoughts
That through his brain are travelling,—
And, starting up, to Bruce's heart
He launched a deadly javelin!
Fair Ellen saw it when it came,

And, stepping forth to meet the same,
Did with her body cover

The Youth, her chosen lover.

And falling into Bruce's arms,
Thus died the beauteous Ellen,
Thus from the heart of her True-love
The mortal spear repelling.

And Bruce, as soon as he had slain
The Gordon, sailed away to Spain;
And fought with rage incessant
Against the Moorish Crescent.

This wretched Knight did vainly seek
The death that he was wooing:
And coming back across the wave,
Without a groan on Ellens grave
His body he extended,
And there his sorrow ended.

Now ye, who willingly have heard
The tale I have been telling,
May in Kirkonnel-churchyard view,
The grave of lovely Ellen:
By Ellen's side the Bruce is laid;
And, for the stone upon his head,
May no rude hand deface it,
And its forlorn Hic jacet!

LOUIS A.

I MET Louisa in the shade;
And, having seen that lovely Maid,
Why should I fear to say

That she is ruddy, fleet, and strong;
And down the rocks can leap along,
Like rivulets in May?

And she hath smiles to earth unknown;
Smiles, that with motion of their own
Do spread, and sink, and rise;
That come and go with endless play,
And ever, as they pass away,
Are hidden in her eyes.

She loves her fire, her cottage-home;
Yet o'er the moorland will she roam
In weather rough and bleak;

And when against the wind she strains,
Oh! might I kiss the mountain-rains
That sparkle on her cheek.

Take all that's mine beneath the moon,
If I with her but half a noon
May sit beneath the walls

Of some old cave, or mossy nook.
When up she winds along the brook,
To hunt the waterfalls.