Then bear me swift along the main,
The lonely isle again to see;
And when I here return again,

I plight my faith to dwell with thee.' An oozy film her limbs o'erspread,

While slow unfolds her scaly train; With gluey fangs her hands were clad; She lashed with webbéd fin the main. He grasps the Mermaid's scaly sides, As with broad fin she oars her way; Beneath the silent moon she glides, That sweetly sleeps on Colonsay. Proud swells her heart! she deems at last To lure him with her silver tongue, And, as the shelving rocks she past, She raised her voice and sweetly sung.

In softer, sweeter strains she sung,
Slow gliding o'er the moonlight bay,
When light to land the chieftain sprung,
To hail the Maid of Colonsay.

O sad the Mermaid's gay notes fell,
And sadly sink remote at sea!
So sadly mourns the writhed shell
Of Jura's shore, its parent sea.

And ever as the year returns,

The charm-bound sailors know the day; For sadly still the Mermaid mourns The lovely Chief of Colonsay.

(This ballad is taken from The Mountain Bard,' by Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd; a work which, in the words of Sir Walter Scott, 'contains many legendary stories and ballads of great merit. Of the origin of the work the Shepherd, in his Autobiography, gives the following account:- On the appearance of the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' I was much dissatisfied with the imitations of the ancient ballads contained in it, and immediately set about imitating the ancient ballads myself, selecting a number of traditionary stories, and put them in metre, chanting them to certain old tunes. In these I was more successful than in anything I had hitherto tried, although they were still but rude pieces of composition. On my return to Scotland, (in 1801,) having lost all the money that I had made by a regular and industrious life, and in one week too, I again cheerfully hired myself as a shepherd with Mr. Harkness, of Mitchellblack in Nithsdale. It was while here that I published The Mountain Bard,' consisting of the abovementioned ballads.' Between these ballads and those to which, in his dissatisfaction therewith, they owe their existence, this is not the place for instituting a comparison. Whatever their respective merits, however, they one and all may fitly find a 'local habitation' in the 'Pictorial Balladist."]

It is of ane May, and ane lovely May,
That dwelt in the Moril Glen,
The fairest flower of mortal frame,
But a devil amongst the men;

For nine of them sticket themselves for love,
And ten louped in the main,
And seven-and-thretty brake their hearts,
And never loved women again;

For ilk ane trowit she was in love,
And ran wodde for a while-
There was siccan language in every look,
And a speire in every smile.

And she had seventy scores of ewes,
That blett o'er dale and down,

On the bonnie braid lands of the Moril Glen,
And these were all her own;

And she had stotts, and strudy steers,

And blithsome kids enew,

That danced as light as gloaming flies
Out through the falling dew.

And this May she had a snow-white buil,
The dread of the hail countrye,
And three-and-thretty good milk kye,
To bear him companye;

And she had geese and goslings too,
And ganders of muckil din,

And peacocks, with their gaudy trains,
And hearts of pride within;

And she had cocks with curled kaims,
And hens, full crouse and glad,
That chanted in her own stack-yard,
And cackillit and laid like mad;

But where her minnie gat all that gear
And all that lordly trim,

The Lord in Heaven he knew full well,
But noboby knew but him;

For she never yielded to mortal man,
To prince, nor yet to king-

She never was given in holy church,
Nor wedded with ane ring.

So all men wist, and all men said;

But the tale was in sore mistime, For a maiden she could hardly be,

With a daughter in beauty's prime.

But this bonny May, she never knew
A father's kindly claim;
She never was bless'd in holy church,
Nor christen'd in holy name.

But there she lived an earthly flower
Of beauty so supreme,

Some fear'd she was of the mermaid's brood,
Come out of the salt sea faeme.

Some said she was found in a fairy ring,
And born of the fairy queen;

For there was a rainbow behind the moon
That night she first was seen.

Some said her mother was a witch,
Come frae ane far country;
Or a princess loved by a weird warlock
In a land beyond the sea!

O, there are doings here below

That mortal ne'er should ken;
For there are things in this fair world
Beyond the reach of men.

Ae thing most sure and certain was—
For the bedesmen told it me-

That the knight who coft the Moril Glen
Ne'er spoke a word but three.

And the masons who biggit that wild ha house
Ne'er spoke word good nor ill;

They came like a dream, and pass'd away
Like shadows o'er the hill.

They came like a dream, and pass'd away

Whither no man could tell;

But they ate their bread like Christian men,
And drank of th crystal well.

And whenever man said word to them,

They stay'd their speech full soon;

For they shook their heads, and raised their hands,

And the lady came-and there she 'bade
For mony a lonely day;

But whether she bred her bairn to God—
To read but and to pray-

There was no man wist, though all men guess'd,
And guess'd with fear and dread;

But o she grew ane virgin rose,

To seemly womanheid!

And no man could look on her face,
And eyne that beam'd so clear,
But felt a stang gang through his heart,
Far sharper than a spear.

It was not like ane prodde or pang
That strength could overwin,
But like ane red hot gaud of iron
Reeking his heart within.

So that around the Moril Glen
Our brave young men did lie,
With limbs as lydder, and as lythe,
As duddis hung out to dry.

And

aye
the tears ran down in streams
Ower cheeks right woe-begone;
And aye they gasped, and they gratte,
And thus made piteous moan :—

"Alake that I had ever been born,
Or dandelit on the knee;
Or rockit in ane cradle bed,
Beneath a mother's e'e!

"O! had I died before my cheek
To woman's breast had lain,
Then had I ne'er for woman's love
Endured this burning pain!

"For love is like the fiery flame
That quivers through the rain,
And love is like the pang of death
That splits the heart in twain.

"If I had loved earthly thing,

Of earthly blithesomeness,

I might have been beloved again,
And bathed in earthly bliss.