When thou, bereft of sleep,
Shalt prayerful vigil keep,
And, peering in the gloom

Of thy encurtain'd room,
Shalt see, in vision-wise, his little cot,

Shalt hear his evening prayer,
And kiss his forehead fair,

Stroke his yellow hair,
Then listen for thy darling's sleeping breath,

Now hush'd in death;
And when Reality, with stony eyes,
Sits on thy couch, and thou dost realize

The dread decree-
“Thou shalt go to him, but he
Shall not, shall not return to thee;"
When the fountains of thy woe

Thine eyelids overflow,
Drenching thy pillow in a bitter sea,

Then will I think of thee,
Then my part shall be

To weep with thee.
Weep, 'twill ease thy pain;
Tears are the kindly rain

By Heaven sent
To moisten our hard hearts beneath its sky,
Lest they should shrink, and shrivel, and be dry;
Lest the white blooms of Charity should die,

Faded and spent.
Oh! there is joy in sadness,

There is bliss in tears -
Amid the summer showers,

The archéd bow appears -
A promise gleaming through the mists of years,
In characters that burn and glow –
Sorrow shall cease - tears shall not always flow.

Whereof his closest knoweth not the plan,-
Can aught dwell there save self and solitude ?

II.
No other self walks with me o'er its floors;

The nearest, dearest, truest of my friends

Knows but the vestibule; nor ever wends
Beyond the silence of its guarded doors.

III.
The reflex of a smile is sometime thrown,

A Mother's smile, upon its inner way,

Sweet lips and eyes of tenderness, to stay
Awhile with Love; but not to keep the throne.

IV.
The crypt is void, although a dear dead face,

With faint aureola of angel's hair,

Brings down at times a light that lingers there, That sheds its gold, yet cannot fill the place.

V.
O small white hand now clasping nothingness!

O voice of song! could she in life have fill'd

The inner chamber and its aching still'd ? Nay- God alone must fill it -- nothing less!

THE PEARL OF PEACE. A BIVALVE feeding in the warm salt sea

Draws inward, with the wave, a sandy grain,

Which, not returning with the wave again, Remains henceforth its secret grief to be. Day after day, so sea-wise folk agree,

The creature hides it in a dew-like rain

Of ceaseless tears, till, harden'd out of pain, A precious pearl is fashion'd perfectly.

From outer seas of passion, seas of strife, There drifts at times upon the human heart

A secret rankling grief that day by day We cover with the bitter tears of life, Till, wrought of pain from out our nobler part,

The pearl of Peace remains with us alway.

THE HUMAN CRY.

I.
The human lifts a wailing to be heard,

And clinging hands to clutch the dim Unknown

That draws forever back behind His throne Who gives good gifts; but speaketh not a word.

II. The world grows old : still lifts the bitter breath :

Why? Tell us – Why? behind our prison bars !

o Children! are we wise? Hope crown'd with stars Is ours — and Love that dieth not — and Death!

QUATRAINS.

AMBITION.
The royal eagle hawketh not for flies,

Nor mates the soaring skylark with the wren;

So, scorning narrow aims of lesser men, Move to their goal, the minds of high emprise.

FRIENDSHIP.

I. Some Friendships are like leaves; when skies are

fair Their green flags flutter, making glad the day;

INNERMOST.

J.
Cas aught into the Innermost intrude ?

The cryptic chamber of the heart of man,

43

INTERPRETATION. Nature's fair rind, the Poet doth ignite

With his soul's flame; subjectively he sees

Form, force, and law, and deep analogies — And all her beauty blazes in his light.

SWEET-WOODRUFF.

She will not show her face, though woo'd by kings, Till o'er her beat the pulsings of thy wings.

- Blow, Wild March Wind.

ROSES, But a cry, as of pain, arose in Eden A sharp cry, from the lips of Eve, embower'd 'Mid her roses, she, plucking milky blossoms, Felt thorns twain, on a sudden, smite her finger; Sharp thorns, sharper than spears, the first in Eden; For the roses were thornless, smooth as willow, Ere her sinfulness. Blood-drops stain'd the petals, Erst as white as the hellebore in winter; And she, musing, beheld a wondrous marvel — Where the beads of her blood the leaves ensanguin'd, Lo! red roses were born, as joys in sorrow, A rose, red as the nut-tree bloom in spring-days.

- The Birth of the Red-Rose.

MEMORY. Upon the mirror-surface of the mind The Beautiful imprints itself, in shades And colors of its own, and thenceforth lives, Through passing days and all the weighted years, A precious picture of the memory.

Memory Pictures.

A song

SIMPLICITY.
O wild flowers of my motherland!

Gems of the woodland wide,
Companions in our burden'd ways,

Meek watchers by our side;
What tender thoughts, from birth to age,

Within your petals hide.
The human heart is wayward, strange,

Uncertain flow its springs,
But ever bound by simplest ties,
And link'd to simplest things;

- a lock of hair- a flower,
Will touch its tenderest strings.

A Golden Day.

REST.
The sense that I have nought to do

Steals sweetly over me;
Nothing to do for one green month,

Nothing to do- but be -
To lie full length on grassy slope

In sight of summer sea.
To weary worker forced to seek

The feathers for his nest;
To toiling, moiling, busy ones,

How good a thing is rest!
The Peace that falls from Angels' wings
On eyelids of the blest.

- Ibist.
LABOR.
Labor makes a king of man,
And crowns him every day.

- Ibid.
DESOLATION.
By the weed-strewn, brown, desolate reaches,
Lonely, and half broken-hearted,

We met, and we parted, By the weed-strewn, brown, desolate reaches.

Still Looking ANEMONE. Blow, wild March wind! In hollows of the lea, In copses low, thy bride awaiteth thee The timid, saint-like, white anemone.

WILD FLOWERS.
I love to hold you by your slender stems,
And learn the golden lore within your eyes;
Or, when ye swing your censers as ye pray
At eventide, upon my spirit's ear
To catch the voicings of your trembling choirs;
Inhale your incense as it soars to God,
And feel I have a part with you. 'Tis good
To trace His impress on your veinèd leaves,
To track the filmy foldings of a rose,
Or gaze in silence on a daisy's fringe.

Wild Flowers,

BEAUTY. O eyes! where dwelt the witchery of power, Dark eyes and deep that beam'd from out a bower Of lashes curl'd like stamens of a flower. O hair of night! not flowing light and free As wintry tresses of the birchen tree, But serpent-wound and braided royally. O form! the beauty of the Greek inbred, Such gracious curves of brow, and lip, and chin, And stately throat, and fair full breasts wherein The Love-god's self might rest his drowsy head.

- A Memory.

SILENCE. The wheel is silent, for the stream is dry, The dead leaves drift, the green leaf turns to brown, And on her grave the quiet stars look down.

- A Memory.

ROBERT GILFILLAN.

THE

THE sweet and plaintive lyric which preserves

the name of Gilfillan takes its place among our standard songs as one of the best, if not the best of its kind. Its author was born in Dunfermline, in 1798, in very humble circumstances.

After learning the trade of a cooper in Leith, he became a clerk in a wine-merchant's office, and in 1837, was appointed collector of poor-rates for the burgh of Leith. He held this appointment will his death, which took place in 1850. Two editions of his poems have been published; but though some others of them are well written, none comes up to the standard of “ Why Left I My Hame." J. R.

THE EXILE'S SONG.

Tune-"My Ain Countrie."

In the days o' langsyne we aye ranted an' sang
By the warm ingle-side, or the wild braes amang;:
Our lads busked braw, an' our lasses looked fine,
An' the sun on our mountains seemed ever to

shine;
Oh, where is the Scotland o' bonnie langsyne?

Oh, why left I my hame?

Why did I cross the deep? Oh, why left I the land

Where my forefathers sleep? I sigh for Scotia's shore,

And I gaze across the sea, But I canna get a blink

O' my ain countrie!

In the days o' langsyne ilka glen had its tale,
Sweet voices were heard in ilk breath o' the gale;
An' ilka wee burn had a sang o' its ain,
As it trotted alang through the valley or plain -
Shall we e'er hear the music o' streamlets again?

The palm-tree waveth high,

And fair the myrtle springs; And, to the Indian maid,

The bulbul sweetly sings; But I dinna see the broom

Wi’ its tassels on the lea, Nor hear the lintie's sang

O' my ain countrie!

In the days o'langsyne there were feasting an' glee,
Wi' pride in ilk heart, an' joy in ilk ee;
An' the auld, 'mang the happy, their eild seemed

to tyne, It was your stoup the nicht, an' the morn it was

mine; Oh, the days o' langsyne!- Oh, the days o' lang

syne!

Oh! here no Sabbath bell

Awakes the Sabbath morn, Nor song of reapers heard

Amang the yellow corn: For the tyrant's voice is here,

And the wail of slaverie; But the sun of freedom shines

In my ain countrie!

There's a hope for every woe,

And a balm for every pain, But the first joys o' our heart

Come never back again. There's a track upon the deep,

And a path across the sea; But the weary ne'er return

To their ain countrie!

FAREWELL,
Though dark and dreary lowers the night,

Calm and serene may be the morrow;
The cup of pleasure ne'er shone bright

Without some mingling drops of sorrow!
Fare thee well, for I must leave thee,
But, oh, let not our parting grieve thee.

-Fare Thee Well.

YOUTH. I canna dow but sigh, I canna dow but mourn, For the blythe happy days that never can return; When joy was in the heart, an' love was on the

tongue, An' mirth on ilka face, for ilka face was young.

– The Happy Days o'Youth.