Ellen More.

"The fields are green, the skies are bright,
The leaves are on the tree,

And among the sweet flowers of the thyme,
Far flies the honey bee,

And the lark hath sung his morning prime
And merrily singeth he.

Yet not for this shall I go forth
On the open hill to play;
There's not a bird that singeth now
Would tempt me hence to stray;
I would not leave our cottage door
For a thousand flowers to-day."

"And why?" said I; "what is there here Beside your cottage door,

To make a merry girl like you

Thus idly sit and pore?

There is a mystery in this thing--
Now tell me, Ellen More."

The fair girl looked into my face
With her dark and serious eve;

Silently awhile she stood,

Then heaved a quiet sigh; And with a half-reluctant will

Again she made reply:

"Three

years ago, unknown to us, When the nuts were on the tree, E'en in the pleasant harvest time, My brother went to sea; Without a word to sea he went,

And a sorrowful house were we.

107

That winter was a weary time,

A long dark time of woe;

For we knew not in what ship he sailed, And we sought in vain to know;

And night and day, the loud, loud wind Seemed evermore to blow.

My mother lay upon her bed,

And her heavy heart was tossed

With dismal thoughts of storm and wreck

Upon some savage coast;

But morn and eve we prayed to God

That he might not be lost.

And when the pleasant spring came on, And again the fields were green,

He sent a letter full of news

Of the wonders he had seen

Praying us to think him loving still,

As he had ever been.

The tidings that came next were from

A sailor old and gray,

Who saw his ship at anchor lie

In the harbour of Bombay;

But he said my brother pined for home, And wished he were away.

Again he wrote a letter long,
Without a word of gloom;
And soon, and very soon, he said
He should again come home:

I watched, as now, beside the door,
And yet he did not come.

Rosabelle.

I watched, and watched, but knew not then

It would be all in vain;

For very sick he lay the while

In an hospital in Spain.

Ah me! I fear my brother dear
Will ne'er come home again.

And now I watch-for we have heard
That he is on the way,

And the letter said in very truth,

He would be here to-day.

Oh, there's not a bird that singeth now
Would tempt me hence away."

That self-same eve I wandered down

Unto the busy strand,

Just as a little boat came in,

With people, to the land;
And among them was a sailor boy,
Who leaped upon the sand.

I knew him by his dark blue eyes,
And by his features fair;
And on the shore he gaily sang
A simple Scottish air-

"There's no place like our own dear home,

To be met with anywhere."

109

MARY HOWITT.

ROSABELLE.

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?"

"'Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
To-night at Roslin leads the ball,

But that my lady-mother there
Sits lonely in her castle hall.

'Tis not because the ring they ride,
And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will chide
If 'tis not filled by Rosabelle."

O'er Roslin all that dreary night

A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 'Twas broader than the watch-fires' light, And redder than the bright moonbeam.

It glared on Roslin's castled rock,

It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak,

And seen from caverned Hawthornden.

Alice Fell.

Seemed all on fire that chapel proud

Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie,
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.

Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
And glimmered all the dead men's mail.

Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair-
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.

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,

III

With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung,
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

SIR W. SCOTT.

ALICE FELL; OR, POVERTY.

(HE post-boy drove with fierce career

For threatening clouds the moon had drowned;
When suddenly I seemed to hear

A moan, a lamentable sound.