To the flowery banks and braes,
Where the Doon's clear current strays,
Underneath the holms which lie

Where old Monkwood flouts the sky
With its honest hideousness;
Ne'er did uglier house, I guess,
E'en in Scottish region stand
Mistress of a fairer land;

Ne'er did mansion more uncouth
Shelter age and gladsome youth,
In more loving union met
Than we shall behold there yet;
Though grim death hath busy been,
And the oceans roll between

Us and some with whom we roved
Once amidst those woods beloved.

Come with us; those woods should be Dear to you as dear to me;

Though you ne'er, in childhood's hours, Roam'd amidst their banks and bowers,

Though far other scenes than these

Haunt

your young remembrances, Yet, believe me, you shall soon

Love yon bright and brawling Doon;
And those hills and natural woods,
With their summer solitudes,

And the hearts that in them dwell,

And yon graceless house, as well,

Other haunts than these alone;
E'en as if yon clustering trees,
With your earliest sympathies,
In their robes of smiling green
Still had intermingled been;
E'en as if yon river clear,
Murmuring to your infant ear,
First had for your spirit found
Entrance to the world of sound.
Six and twenty years had flown,
Ere by me those scenes were known:
Yet have they to me become
Sacred as my childhood's home;
Dear as though I ne'er had stray'd
From their sweet and sylvan shade.
There, in Love's delicious morn,
Ere our eldest child was born,
Ere youth's latest dream was fled,
Ere young Phantasy was dead,
Ere the Husband or the Wife
Felt the real pains of Life,

Ere Death's touch had harm'd us yet,
Roam'd I with my Margaret:
There, our gentle friends and true,
Gladly would we roam with you.

Come with us; our time is short In those cherish'd haunts to sport; All things mortal wax and wane, may we even now complain,

Nor

That from us and ours, alas !

Must these pleasant places pass;
That for other eyes than ours

We have twined our favourite bowers;

That our own beloved Doon

Must for other ears too soon
Sing his blithe and jocund song
Those o'erhanging banks along;
And that stranger steps must roam
Through our old ancestral home;
Unfamiliar forms be seen

Where our loved and lost have been;
Unfamiliar spirits dwell

In the rooms we love so well;
Homely though perchance they be

In their old simplicity.

So it is-we find on earth

No continuing home or hearth;

Still through chance and change we roam, Seeking better lands to come.

Come with us, and we will go Where the streams of Zion flow, Through the city of our God, Which no foot profane hath trod. Change and sorrow come not there, All is fix'd, as all is fair.

Earthly glories fade and fleet,

Nothing long on Earth is sweet;
Though our woods may still be green,
And sweet Doon may gush between,

Clear and sparkling as of old,
Yet no more may we behold

On his banks the forms that

gave

Half their sweetness,-for the grave
Hath already closed o'er some;

Others, in their Eastern home,

Wander haply, in their dreams,

Through the woods and near the streams,
Which, when life is worn away,

And their temples strewn with grey,
And their hearts' best fervour o'er,
Haply they shall see once more ;
See-by alien lords possest,
When our griefs are gone to rest.

Come with us-let Memory still Feed and cherish, as she will, Forms of beauty gone and past, Pleasures too intense to last.

be

Meet support therein may
For the heart's infirmity;
But for us a brighter home
Spreads its glories; let us come

Whither Faith, and Hope, and Love,

Urge our laggard steps above:

Let us such high call obey,

Help each other on the way;

Through the narrow entrance press
Of the realm of righteousness,

Where, in joy's eternal river,

This world's griefs are lost for ever.

H

MIDSUMMER MUSINGS.

WITH slow and toilsome course,

this summer noon,

Have I, in pensive and fantastic mood,
Forsaking, for a time, the converse bland
And fair urbanities, which suit so well

Yon English hearth and household, wound my way
Up to this
green hill's topmost eminence;

Whence, with a quick and comprehensive glance, Which fills the soul with beauty, the glad eye Takes in a vast and richly-varied plain

Of England's own fertility, adorn'd

At intervals with old ancestral balls,

Trim farms and village spires, which crown the hills,
Or just out-top the dark and leafy woods,
O'er which the blue smoke, like a level sea,
Delights to linger; to the thoughtful heart
Conveying no inapt or empty type

Of that which still hath been and still shall be,
Despite the vaunts of democratic hate,

And turbulent assaults of godless men,
Our country's strength and glory, household love
And social union, strengthen'd, not dissolved,
By meet gradation of well-order'd ranks,
Each melting into each, and by the warmth
Of undefiled religion's genial sun

Matured and cherish'd. On the extremest verge