The year's last night—

The year's first morn! Doth it bring weal or woe?

With cypress or with roses is it crowned?

What heralds it-a dirge, or festive strain?

Hark, a glad peal awakes! each spire rings out

With merry chime unto the clear

young morn,—

Clear and star-lighted; and the shrill-tongued bells

Fill with their laughing voices all the air.

The wind is high and changing. Listen, now!
Far, far away is wafted every tone,

Till wayward Fancy might almost believe

That Echo slept, and answered in her dreams,-
Save here and there a shrill and wand'ring note
Comes floating hither, as on truant wing.
Now on the breeze the loud peal swells again,
Ringing upon the startled, shrinking ear,
In varied yet monotonous confusion ;-
E'en like loud gossips that out-talk each other,
Would every bell above the rest be heard.

Thus gladly welcomed is the new-born year; But I muse on the mem'ry-haunted past

M

The past-that claimeth many a dream of joy—

Many a heart-wrung tear!

Great God of Heaven!

66

Thou, who e'en markest when a sparrow falls,"
Look down upon thy child!-though as a worm
She seemeth in thy sight, "forgive her sins,"
In tender mercy pardon her-and grant
That, at the close of every future year,

As she retrace its course, her soul may

In humblest adoration Him who made,

bless

Who guided, and preserved her. If love and joy
May be my lot on earth, oh, bid my heart
Pour forth its fervent prayers of gratitude!--
And, if 'tis meet for me to suffer grief,
Teach me, oh, Father! to thy will to bow;
Give me that hope of a more blest hereafter
And that undying faith which can alone
Direct my erring spirit to its God!

THE MINSTREL'S DIRGE.

The last of all the bards was he,

Who sung of border chivalry.

LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

Why moans the wind with that dying close, "Through th' ancient aisles of holy Melrose? "Why, as the strength of each blast is sped, "Doth it sadly wail, like a dirge o'er the dead, “And wave the dark ivy that curtains the wall, "Like the gloomy folds of a funeral-pall ?”

And seemed it to thy dull earthly mind

The idle tongue of the wandering wind

Breathed that thrilling dirge through the ivy-gloom, Like a requiem sung o'er a warrior's tomb?

And deem'st thou such heart-stirring tones as these, Were the transient sighs of the evening breeze?

"Twas a spirit-voice, that mystic sound,
Waking the sleeping echoes around,

On moor, in glen, or on heathery hill,
Where late they were hidden so calm and still;
And their airy tongues, above, below,

Are breathing that requiem sad and slow.

Mourn, Caledon! mourn to thy farthest shore,
From princely palace to loneliest cave;
Mourn for the joy of thy lyre is o'er,

Its monarch is laid in the silent grave!

That master-hand is now cold in death,

And quelled is its magic and varied power; That eloquent lip hath resigned its breath,

And returned to the dust like the frailest flower:

And that eye, with poetic fire once bright,
And visioning scenes of high chivalry,
Hath dimly waned from its starlike might,
And sunk in the grave's obscurity.

Oh, Death!—that such talents must bow to thee,
And obey thy call from their high career!

Canst thou not spare e'en Nature's regality,

But must summon it hence to a distant sphere? How vain was the care that the doomed one bore From his native hills o'er the ocean spray!

Though sunny and glad be that southern shore,
Could it check the spirit then passing away!
Yet there might the wand'ring bard behold
A type of the memory he should claim,
When mortality's shrine could no longer fold
A mind, scorning death, in immortal fame:
As the tow'ring fanes of that classic land
Lift in awful grandeur their stately forms,
And, age after age, unmoved, withstand

Time's silent blight and the scathing storms.
Though empires fall, and their being seems
As a dim, faint shade of forgotten dreams:
And thrones shake off their monarchs one by one,
"Till princes shall tremble to mount thereon;
Though the very earth is with change imbued,

;

Their dauntless forms remain unsubdued,
And nobly stand in their ancient array,

To tell of a greater and happier day.