O'er fell and fountain sheen,

O'er moor and mountain green,

O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,

Over the cloudlet dim,

Over the rainbow's rim,

Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!

Then, when the gloaming comes,

Low in the heather blooms

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!

Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place

O to abide in the desert with thee!

GANG TO THE BRAKENS WI' ME.

THIS pastoral ballad is likewise set to music by Bishop, in Goulding and D'Almaine's Select Melodies, but I confess not much to my taste, as he has ruined the simplicity of my favourite air, which I deemed a masterpiece.

I'LL sing of yon glen of red heather,
An' a dear thing that ca's it her hame,
Wha's a' made o' love-life thegither,
Frae the tie o' the shoe to the kaime.
Love beckons in every sweet motion,
Commanding due homage to gie;

But the shrine o' my dearest devotion
Is the bend o' her bonny eebree.

I fleech'd an' I pray'd the dear lassie
To gang to the brakens wi' me;
But, though neither lordly nor saucy,
Her answer was-" Laith wad I be!

B

I neither hae father nor mither,

Sage counsel or caution to gie;
An' prudence has whisper'd me never
To gang to the brakens wi' thee."

Dear lassie, how can ye upbraid me,
An' try your ain love to beguile?
For ye are the richest young lady

That ever gaed o'er the kirk-stile.

Your smile, that is blither than ony,

The bend o' your cheerfu' eebree, An' the sweet blinks o' love there sae bonny, Are five hunder thousand to me!

She turn'd her around, an' said, smiling,

While the tear in her blue eye shone clear, "You're welcome, kind sir, to your mailing, For, O, you hae valued it dear:

Gae make out the lease, do not linger,
Let the parson indorse the decree;
An' then, for a wave o' your finger,

I'll

gang to the brakens wi' thee!"

There's joy in the bright blooming feature, When love lurks in every young line; There's joy in the beauties of nature,

There's joy in the dance and the wine : But there's a delight will ne'er perish, 'Mang pleasures all fleeting an' vain, And that is to love and to cherish

The fond little heart that's our ain!

THE MINSTREL BOY

WAS written as a per contra to Mr Moore's song to the same air. But either he or his publishers, or both, set up their birses, and caused it and a great many more to be cancelled, the most ridiculous of all things, in my opinion, I ever knew. It was manifestly because they saw mine

were the best.

Let them take that! as Gideon Laidlaw said when the man died who had cheated him.

THE Minstrel Boy to the glen is gone,

In its deepest dells you'll find him,
Where echoes sing to his music's tone,
And fairies listen behind him.

He sings of nature all in her prime,
Of sweets that around him hover,
Of mountain heath and moorland thyme,
And trifles that tell the lover.