"Now the birks to dust may rot, Name o' luvers be forgot, Nac lads and lasses there ony mair convene ; But the blythe lilt o' yon air Keps the bush aboon Traquair, a ded And the love that ance was there, aye fresh and green,” THE REV. THOMAS WHYTEHEAD. 1815-1843 THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION This world I deem * 1 But a beautiful dream Of shadows that are not what they seem ; Where visions rise Giving dim surmise 1 Of the things that shall meet our waking eyes. Arm of the Lord! Creating Word! Whose glory the silent skies record- In scrolls of flame, On the firmament's high-shadowing frame ! I gaze o'erhead, and mor For the waters of Heaven that crystal bed; In its deeps of blue, As beneath the veil of Thy flesh divine <If That were else too b bright When we waken from life's mysterious dream, And burst the shell ***** Where our spirits dwell In their wondrous antenatal cell. I gaze aloof On the tissued roof. Where time and space are the warp and woof, i. Which the King of Kings..!!* As a curtain flings O'er the dreadfulness of eternal things. A tapestried tent To shade us meant From the bare everlasting firmament-- Comes soft to our eyes Through a veil of mystical imageries. But could I see As in truth they be, The glories of heaven that encompass me, I should lightly hold The tissued fold 1 Of that marvellous curtain of blue and gold. Soon the whole, Like a parched scroll, Shall before my amazed sight uproll; At one burst be seen The Presence wherein I have ever been. O! who shall bear Of the Majesty that shall meet us there? What eye may gaze On the unveiled blaze Of the light-girdled throne of the Ancient of Days? Christ, us aid! Himself be our shade, That in that dread day we be not dismay'd. M France ; As when they went for Palestine, with Louis at their head, And many a waving banner, and the Oriflamme outspread ; And many a burnished galley with its blaze of armour shone In the ports of sunny Cyprus and the Acre of St. John;— And many a knight who signed the cross, as he saw the burning sands With a prayer for those whom he had left in green and fairer lands. God aid them all, God them assoil, for few shall see again Streams like their own, their azure Rhone, or swift and silver Seine. And they are far from their Navarre, and from their soft Garonne, The Lords of Foix and Grammont, and the Count of Carcassonne ; For they have left, those Southron knights, the clime they loved so well— The feasts of fair Montpellier and the Toulouse Carousel, And the chase in early morning, when the keen and pleasant breeze Came cold to the cheek from many a peak of the snowy Pyrenees. Oh never yet was theme so meet for rounde or romance As the ancient aristocracy and chivalry of France ; As when they lay before Tournay, and the Grand Monarque was there, With the bravest of his warriors, and the fairest of his fair; And the sun that was his symbol, and on his army shone, Was in lustre, and in splendour, and in light itself outdone, For the lowland and the highland were gleaming as of old, When England vied with France in pride, on the famous Field of Gold, And morn, and noon, and evening, and all the livelong night, Were the sound of ceaseless music and the echo of delight. And but for Vauban's waving arm and the answering cannonade, |