By oppression's woes and pains!
By our sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!

Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!

Liberty 's in every blow!

Let us do or die!

ROBERT BURNS.

BRUCE AND THE ABBOT.1

THE Abbot on the threshold stood,
And in his hand the holy rood.
Then, cloaking hate with fiery zeal,
Proud Lorn first answered the appeal:
"Thou comest, O holy man,
True sons of blessed Church to greet,
But little deeming here to meet

A wretch, beneath the ban

Of Pope and Church, for murder done
E'en on the sacred altar stone!

Well may'st thou wonder we should know

Such miscreant here, nor lay him low,

Or dream of greeting, peace, or truce,
With excommunicated Bruce!

Yet well I grant to end debate,

Thy sainted voice decide his fate."

1 This is an extract from the Lord of the Isles, one of Scott's onger poems.

The Abbot seemed with eye severe
The hardy chieftain's speech to hear;
Then on King Robert turned the monk,
But twice his courage came and sunk,
Confronted with the hero's look;
Twice fell his eye, his accents shook.
Like man by prodigy amazed,
Upon the King the Abbot gazed;
Then o'er his pallid features glance
Convulsions of ecstatic trance;

His breathing came more thick and fast,
And from his pale blue eyes were cast
Strange rays of wild and wandering light;
Uprise his locks of silver white,

Flushed is his brow; through every vein
In azure tide the currents strain,
And undistinguished accents broke
The awful silence ere he spoke.

"De Bruce! I rose with purpose dread
To speak my curse upon thy head,
And give thee as an outcast o'er
To him who burns to shed thy gore;

But, like the Midianite of old,

Who stood on Zophim, Heaven-controlled,
I feel within mine aged breast

Α

power that will not be repressed;

It prompts my voice, it swells my veins,
It burns, it maddens, it constrains!
De Bruce, thy sacrilegious blow
Hath at God's altar slain thy foe:
O'ermastered yet by high behest,

I bless thee, and thou shalt be blessed!”
He spoke, and o'er the astonished throng
Was silence, awful, deep, and long.

Again that light has fired his eye,
Again his form swells bold and high,
The broken voice of age is gone,
'Tis vigorous manhood's lofty tone:
"Thrice vanquished on the battle plain,
Thy followers slaughtered, fled, or ta'en,
A hunted wanderer on the wild,
On foreign shores a man exiled,
Disowned, deserted, and distressed,
I bless thee, and thou shalt be blessed!
Blessed in the hall and in the field,
Under the mantle as the shield.
Avenger of thy country's shame,
Restorer of her injured fame,
Blessed in thy sceptre and thy sword, -
De Bruce, fair Scotland's rightful lord,
Blessed in thy deeds and in thy fame,
What lengthened honors wait thy name!
In distant ages, sire to son

Shall tell thy tale of freedom won,
And teach his infants, in the use
Of earliest speech, to falter Bruce.
Go, then, triumphant! sweep along

Thy course, the theme of many a song!

The Power, whose dictates swell my breast,

Hath blessed thee, and thou shalt be blessed!"
SIR WALTER SCOTT.1

1 SIR WALTER SCOTT, the greatest, perhaps, of all modern English writers, was the son of Walter Scott, a writer to the Signet, and was born in Edinburgh in 1771. Although his health in childhood was delicate, he displayed extraordinary talents at a very early age. He was educated at the high school and University of Edinburgh, was admitted to the bar, and held several profitable and important legal appointments He was married in 1797, and soon after published his first

CLAUD HALCRO'S SONG.

FAREWELL to Northmaven,

Gray Hillswicke, farewell!
To the calms of thy haven,
The storms on thy fell;
To each breeze that can vary
The mood of thy main,

And to thee, bonny Mary!
We meet not again.

Farewell the wild ferry,

Which Hacon could brave,

When the peaks of the Skerry
Were white in the wave.

volume of poems and translations. These were followed by his longer poems, such as Marmion and the Lady of the Lake, which gave him a wide reputation. In 1814 he published, anonymously, Waverley, the first of the great series of novels bearing that name, and which gave him world-wide renown and a foremost place in English literature, and which have never been surpassed. He wrote much and well on other subjects also, and was a man of great learning in our older literature. He had an almost superhuman power of production, and made vast sums by his novels. But the money thus gained was wasted, and a partnership with his publishers ended in financia. ruin. He finally extricated himself from his most pressing difficulties, but never regained his wealth. He died in 1832. No biographical paragraph can do justice to his vast and versatile genius, or even give any idea of it. In poetry and romance alike he achieved a success which it is given to few men to attain in either. The lyrics in this collection are taken from the longer poems, and from the novels through which they were scattered with a lavish hand. They are Among the most beautiful in the whole range of English litera

ture.

There's a maid may look over

These wild waves in vain,

For the skiff of her lover –
He comes not again!

The vows thou hast broke,

On the wild currents fling them;

On the quicksand and rock

Let the mermaidens sing them;
New sweetness they 'll give her
Bewildering strain;

But there's one who will never
Believe them again.

O were there an island,
Though ever so wild,

Where woman could smile, and

No man be beguiled

Too tempting a snare

To poor mortals were given;

And the hope would fix there,

That should anchor in heaven.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The Pirate.

THE SONG OF HAROLD HARFAGER.1

THE sun is rising dimly red.

The wind is wailing low and dread;
From his cliff the eagle sallies,

Leaves the wolf his darksome valleys;

Harold Härfager or Harold Fair Hair, the most famous of

Je early kings of Norway 885-894.