They buried it deep, where his bones they sleep, *
That mortal man might never see;

But Thomas did save it from the grave,

When he returned from Faërie.

The black Spae-Book from his breast he took,
And turned the leaves with curious hand

No

ropes did he find the wizard could bind,
But threefold ropes of sifted sand.

They sifted the sand from the Nine-Stane burn,
And shaped the ropes so curiously;
But the ropes would neither twist nor twine,
For Thomas true, and his gramary.

The black Spae-Book from his breast he took,
And again he turned it with his hand;
And he bade each lad of Teviot add
The barley chaff to the sifted sand.†

The barley chaff to the sifted sand

They added still, by handsful nine;

But Red-Cap sly, unseen, was by,

And the ropes would neither twist nor twine.

And still beside the Nine-Stane burn,
Ribb'd, like the sand at mark of sea,
The ropes, that would not twist nor turn,
Shap'd of the sifted sand you see.

The black Spae-Book, true Thomas took
Again its magic leaves he spread;
And he found, that, to quell the powerful spell,
The wizard must be boiled in lead.

* Melrose Abbey-Church.

+ Michael Scott was fabled to have subdued several spirits under his command, for whom he was obliged to find constant employment; he set them to make ropes of sea sand; they applied for leave to add barley chaff, and on his refusal, were obliged to leave the hopeless work.

On a circle of stones they placed the pot;
On a circle of stones, but barely nine-
They heated it red and fiery hot,

Till the burnished brass did glimmer and shine.

They rolled him up in a sheet of lead;

A sheet of lead for a funeral pall!
They plunged him in the cauldron red,

And melted him-lead and bones and all.

At the Skelf-hill, the cauldron still

The Men of Liddesdale can shew;

And on the spot, where they boiled the pot,

The spreat * and the deer-hair† ne'er shall grow.

SCOTT'S BORDER MINSTRELSY.

A species of water-rush.

+ A species of coarse pointed grass, which in May bears a very small but beautiful yellow flower.

THE GRAY BROTHER.

A Fragment.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THE Pope he was saying the high, high Mass,

All on Saint Peter's day

With the power to him given, by the Saints in Heaven, To wash men's sins away.

The Pope he was saying the blessed Mass,

And the people kneeled around;

And from each man's soul his sins did pass,
As he kissed the holy ground.

And all among the crowded throng
Was still, both limb and tongue,

While through vaulted roof and aisles aloof,

The holy accents rung.

At the holiest word he quivered for fear,
And faultered in the sound-

And when he would the chalice rear,

He dropped it on the ground.

"The breath of one of evil deed *
Pollutes our sacred day;-
He has no portion in our creed—
No part in what I say.

"A being, whom no blessed word
To ghostly peace can bring—
A wretch, at whose approach abhorred,
Recoils each holy thing.

Up! up, Unhappy! haste, arise!
My adjuration fear;

I charge thee not to stop my voice,
Nor longer tarry here!"

Amid them all, a Pilgrim kneeled,
In gown of sackcloth gray;
Far journeying from his native field,
He first saw Rome that day.

For forty days, and nights so drear,
I ween he had not spoke;

And, save with bread and water clear,
His fast he ne'er had broke.

Amid the penitential flock

Seemed none more bent to pray;
But when the holy Father spoke,
He rose and went his way.

Again unto his native land

His weary course he drew;

To Lothian's fair and fertile strand,

And Pentland's mountains blue.

* It was a very ancient superstition amongst the Pagans, long before the Christian era, that the presence of an eminently wicked person impeded the due celebration of a religious rite. It seems not unlikely that the foundation of this idea might be traced to the earliest ages of the world; and the inquiry would be worth the attention of those who have leisure and ability to pursue it.-ED.

His unblest feet his native seat,

'Mid Esk's fair woods, regain—

Through woods more fair, no stream more sweet, Rolls to the Eastern main.

And lords to meet the pilgrim came,
And vassals bent the knee :

For, all 'mid Scotland's chiefs of fame,
Was none more fam'd than he.

And boldly for his country still
In battle he had stood -
Ay!-e'en when, on the banks of Till,
Her noblest poured their blood.

Sweet are the paths-O, passing sweet!
By Eske's fair streams, that run
O'er airy steep, through copsewood deep,
Impervious to the sun.

There the 'rapt poet's step may rove,
And yield the muse the day--
There beauty, led by timid love,
May shun the tell-tale ray;

From that fair dome where suit is paid
By blast of bugle free,

To Auchendinny's hazel glade,

And haunted Woodhouselee.

Who knows not Melville's beechy grove,

And Roslin's rocky glen?— Dalkeith, which all the virtues love, And classic Hawthornden?

Yet never a path, from day to day,

The pilgrim's footsteps range,

Save but the solitary way,

To Burndale's ruined Grange.