'O father! I see a gleaming light,

O say, what may it be?'

But the father answered never a word,

A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turn'd to the skies,

The lantern gleam'd through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be ;

And she thought of Christ who stilled the waves
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,

Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept
T'wards the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;

It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,

And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Look'd soft as carded wool,

But the cruel rocks they gored her sides
Like the horns of an angry bull.

But when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

Utawas' tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh, grant us cool heavens, and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

T. Moore

XLVII
ROSABELLE

O listen, listen, ladies gay!

No haughty feat of arms I tell ; Soft is the note, and sad the lay,

That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

'Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew,
And gentle lady, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

'The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;
The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,
Whose screams forbode that wreck is nigh.

'Last night the gifted seer did view

A wet shroud swathed round lady gay; Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch; Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?'

Twas broader th

1

And redder th

cause Lord Lindesay's heir
at Roslin leads the ball,
- lady-mother there

y in her castle hall.

cause the ring they ride, esay at the ring rides well, sire the wine will chide fill'd by Rosabelle.'

in all that dreary night us blaze was seen to gleam; er than the watch-fires' light, er than the bright moonbeam.

Roslin's castled rock,

all the copse-wood glen; from Dryden's groves of oak, from cavern'd Hawthornden.

n fire that chapel proud oslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie, , for a sable shroud, in his iron panoply.

on fire within, around, -isty and altar's pale; - pillar foliage-bound,

mer'd all the dead men's mail.

ement and pinnet high,

ery rose-carved buttress fair

blaze, when fate is nigh

y line of high St. Clair.

L

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle ;
Each one the holy vault doth hold,

But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle !

And each St. Clair was buried there

With candle, with book, and with knell ;

But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung,
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

XLVIII

Sir W. Scott

THE BALLAD OF THE BOAT

The stream was smooth as glass, we said, 'Arise
and let's away :'

The Siren sang beside the boat that in the rushes lay;
And spread the sail, and strong the oar, we gaily

took our way.

When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? when shall we find the bay?

The broadening flood swells slowly out o'er cattledotted plains,

The stream is strong and turbulent, and dark with heavy rains;

The labourer looks up to see our shallop speed

away.

When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? when shall

we find the bay?

Now are the clouds like fiery shrouds; the sun, superbly large,

Slow as an oak to woodman's stroke sinks flaming

at their marge.