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"Farewell, farewell! and Mary grant,
When old and frail you be,
You never may the shelter want,
That's now denied to me."

The Ranger on his couch lay warm,
And heard him plead in vain;
But oft amid December's storm,
He'll hear that voice again:

For low, when through the vapors dank,
Morn shone on Ettrick fair,

A corpse amid the alders rank,
The Palmer welter'd there.

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH.

[There is a tradition in Tweeddale, that, when Neidpath Castle, near Peebles, was inhabited by the Earls of March, a mutual passion subisted between a daughter of that noble family, and a son of the Laird of Tushielaw, in Ettrick Forest. As the alliance was thought unsuitable by her parents, the young man went abroad. During his absence, the lady fell into a consumption; and at length, as the only ineans of saving her life, her father consented that her lover should be recalled. On the day when he was expected to pass through Peebles, on the road to Tushielaw, the young lady, though much exhausted, caused herself to be carried to the balcony of a house in Peebles, Lelonging to the family, that she might see him as he rode past. Her anxiety and eagerness gave such force to her organs, that she is said to have distinguished his horse's footsteps at an incredible distance. But Tushielaw, unprepared for the change in her appearance, and not expecting to see her in that place, rode on without recognizing her, or even slackening his pace.

The lady was unable to support the shock; and, after a short struggle, died in the arms of her attendants. There is an incident similar to this traditional tale in Count Hamilton's "Fleur d'Epine."]

O LOVERS' eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers' ears in hearing;
And love, in life's extremity,

Can lend an hour of cheering.
Disease had been in Mary's bower,
And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neidpath's
tower,

To watch her love's returning.

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Awake in thy chamber, thou sweet southland gale!

Like the sighs of his people, breathe soft on his sail :

Be prolong'd as regret, that his vassals must know,

Be fair as their faith, and sincere as their woe:

Be so soft, and so fair, and so faithful, sweet gale,

Wafting onward Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail!

Be his pilot experienced, and trusty, and wise,

To measure the seas and to study the skies:

May he hoist all his canvas from streamer to deck,

But O! crowd it higher when wafting him back

Till the cliffs of Skooroora, and Conan's glad vale,

Shall welcome Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail!

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

1772-1834.

[SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born at Ottery Saint Mary in the year 1772, was educated ar Christ's Hospital and Jesus College, Cambridge, and died in 1834, at Highgate, in the house of Mr. Gillman, under whose friendly care he had passed the last eighteen years of his life, during which years he wrote but little. His first volume of poems was published at Bristol in 1796, and in 1798, Wordsworth's famous volume of Lyrical Ballads, to which Coleridge contributed The Ancient Mariner, together with some other pieces. Christabel, after lying long in manuscript, was printed in 1816, three editions of it appearing in one year; and in the next year Coleridge published a collection of his chief poems, under the title of Sibylline Leaves, “in allusion," as he says, "to the fragmentary and wildly-scattered state in which they had been long suffered to remain.' desultory writer both in prose and verse, he published the first really collective edition of his Poetical and Dramatic Works in the year 1828, in three volumes arranged by himself; a third and more complete issue of which, arranged by another hand, appeared in 1834, the year of his death. The latest reprint, with notes and an excellent memoir, and some poems not included in any earlier collection, is founded on that final edition of 1834.]

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I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray,
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my eyes and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,

Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reck did they :
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that
curse,

And yet I could not die.

THE ANCIENT MARINER FINDS
A VOICE TO BLESS AND PRAY.
BEYOND the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gushed from my heart
And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

THE BREEZE AFTER THE CALM.

OH sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,

I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I woke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light-almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between,

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge;
And the rain poured down from one
black cloud;

The Moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The Moon was at its side:

Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

THE BEST PRAYER.

HE prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, Me made and loveth all.

FIRST PART OF CHristabel.

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,

And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock,

Tu-whit! -Tu-whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;

From her kennel beneath the rock
She maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for
the hour;

Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud;
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray:
Tis a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this

way.

The lovely lady, Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;
Dreams that made her moan and leap
As on her bed she lay in sleep;
And she in the midnight wood will pray
For the weal of her lover that's far
away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke,
The sighs she heaved were soft and
low,

And naught was green upon the oak
But moss and rarest mistletoe:
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.

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