The threatening scene I then will leave,
And to my low-rooft cot retire,

There sing thy praise, sweet sprite of Eve!
If thou my listening soul inspire.

Q. C. C.

T.

VERSES,

TO A YOUNG LADY, AT THE DOOR OF HER
CARRIAGE IN HYDE PARK.

WILT thou, wilt thou really fly

From vanity and folly,

And quit their pomp without a sigh,
My own dear Dolly?

And wilt thou, wilt thou then forsake
What all the world's admiring,
Old men their last lov'd object make,
And young grow old acquiring?

From out this gaudy harness'd coach
Wilt thou step gently down?
To meet thy lover's meek approach,
Break thro' the gazing town?

And to the silent valley move
With me and Melancholy;
There live and die in lonely love,
My own dear Dolly ?

GEO. SKENE.

VERSES,

ADDRESSED TO THE RUINS OF DUNDRENNAN ABBEY IN GALLOWAY.

PROUD Monastery of ancient time!

That strik'st the soul with awe profound,. Whose ruin'd battlements, sublime,

Are with thick mantling ivy crown'd; Scarce dares the rook to gaze around, From the dread summit of thy walls, While tumbling fragments oft resound,

Far thro' thy long arch'd echoing halls; Where the winds howling, wild and rude, Appal the timid heart of pensive Solitude.

Ye shrines to Superstition rear'd!
Where, in the times of gothic night,
The holy brotherhood, rever'd,

Led thro' these aisles the taper'd rite,

And now, oft in the wan moon-light,

The ghosts of full arm'd knights are seen,

Who for the cross awoke the fight,

Far on the plains of Palestine.

Now 'neath the fractur'd vault their ashes rest, Where the long whisp'ring grass waves o'er the warrior's breast.

Alike dread ruin lords it wide,

O'er the gay seat, or humbler bower,
Destroys the temple's sacred pride,
And heaps in dust the cloud-topt tow'r,
Here, where oft in the midnight hour,
Devotion struck her silver lyre,
And praising hosts were heard to pour
Such strains as wake the soul on fire.

Now, o'er the sod that hides the slumb'ring saint, The grey owl to the moon still breathes her hated plaint.

Yes! where the altar stood rever'd,
The lowing herd unconscious strays,
And oft the goat, with snowy beard,
Looks o'er the window's fractur'd base.
And where, oft to Jehovah's praise,
Peal'd the loud organ, long and deep,
Now on his pipe the shepherd plays,

Or on some tomb-stone falls asleep;

Nor dreams of death, tho' stretch'd o'er his cold bed, Nor dreads the tottering walls impending o'er his head.

Halls! that to Scotia's injur'd queen,

The last sweet night of freedom gave,
Ere had she cross'd you billows green,
That Cumbria's distant mountains lave.
Sad hour! that bade her tempt the wave,
And hore her from her natal lands,
To find no peace but in that grave

Dug by her murderer's bloody hands.

Oh! had thy walls, O shrine, her flight withheld, Whose matchless woes alone her matchless charms

excell'd!

Ye battlements! that look to heav'n,
That in your wrecks your grandeur show,
In vain six hundred years have striven,
To lay in dust that grandeur low:
And yet, full many an age must flow,

Ere shall these long arch'd vistas fall,
Tho' where chiefs sat, now thistles grow,
And nettles hide the sculptur'd wall;
And holy men have led the sacred mass,
Where the rank hemlock waves, o'er the thick-tufted

grass.

Be mine, when evening's lively hues

Paint thy long aisles with glowing red,
Dundrennan! thro' thy courts to muse,
Where sleep the long forgotten dead.
Since were thy deep foundations laid
By Gallovidian Fergus' hands *,

Have twice twelve powerful monarchs sway'd
The sceptre o'er these smiling lands;

Yet thou must sink at last, destroy'd by years,

And the plow tear the soil which thy proud structures bears.

BANKS OF THE KEN.

W. G.

*The Abbey of Dundrennan, in the stewarty of Galloway, was founded by Fergus the first Lord of Galloway, who flourished in the end of the reign of Malcolm Kenmore, and lived till near the end of Malcolm IV. who died in the year 1165. Fergus founded the monastery of Dundrennan in 1142. Some chiefs are entombed in this antient structure, who fought under the banners of the cross in Palestine, during some of the crusades It was here also that Queen Mary slept the night before she set sail for Mary-port, in Cumberland, after the unfortunate battle of Langside. This abbey is one of the most picturesque and venerable ruins in the south of Scotland.

THE THUNDER STORM.

O FOR Evening's brownest shade!
Where the breezes play by stealth
In the forest-cinctured glade,

Round the hermitage of Health; While the noon-bright mountains blaze In the sun's tormenting rays.

O'er the sick and sultry plains,
Thro' the dim delirious air,
Agonizing Silence reigns,

And the wanness of Despair:
Nature faints with fervent heat,

-Ah! her pulse hath ceased to beat!

Now in deep and dreadful gloom,

Clouds on clouds portentous spread, Black, as if the day of doom

Hung o'er Nature's shrinking head: Lo! the lightning breaks from high, -God is coming!-God is nigh!

Hear

ye not his chariot wheels, As the mighty thunder rolls? Nature, startled Nature reels,

From the centre to the poles ; Tremble !-Ocean, Earth and Sky! Tremble!-God is passing by!