No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains,
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest.

Oft as by winding Nith, I, musing, wait

The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn,
And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.

JAMES GRAHAME.

Born 1765-Died 1811.

GRAHAME was born in Glasgow, and enjoyed from his parents the invaluable privileges of an early religious education. From the grammar school he entered the University of Glasgow, and after passing through the usual course of study, devoted himself to the profession of the law. In his practice as a lawhe exhibited the virtuous singularity of being unwilling to yer advocate any cause which was without foundation in equity and truth; when it was manifestly unjust he would return both his brief and fee, and positively refuse to undertake it.

In 1804 he published his poem of the Sabbath, with so much secrecy and caution, that for a long time no individual suspected the author, and he had the satisfaction of hearing its praises repeated in all companies, and of finding his own wife among its warmest admirers. He was so delighted with the enthusiasm of her applause, and with the manner in which she would point out to him its beautiful passages, that at length on one of these occasions he could not avoid confessing himself its author. The Sabbath was followed at different intervals with various other poems.

On the death of his father, Grahame, who had entered the profession of the law chiefly out of respect to the wishes of that parent, turned his attention to the study of Divinity, on which his predilections had always rested, and resolved to give himself up to the service of religion. He was accordingly ordained and appointed to a curacy by the Bishop of Norwich in 1809. After pleasantly describing the situation of his parish in a letter to his friends, he declares himself as happy as he could be at a distance from them, and at the close of a short account of his "temporalities," adds "The church is very ancient and crazy. In the steeple there are three sweet toned bells and an owl."

He died but two years afterwards, enjoying in his last moments the strong consolations of that religion by which his life had been regulated.

Much of Grahame's finest poetry is devotional and religious in its character, and it is all delightful for its excellent moral tendency. The Sabbath is one of the most pleasing poems in the English language. The subject itself, in its very nature, is all poetry, and Grahame has displayed a soft and sweet fancy, a mild enthusiasm for its rural and domestic attractions, and a refined, discriminating taste generally, in the selection and exhibition of its most interesting scenes. The morning of the Sabbath, its progress, its various services and some of its beautiful rites, the feelings with which it is hailed by different classes of men and in various circumstances, its romantic solemnity and sacred power amidst the persecuted covenanters, the Sabbath jubilee of the Jews, the Sabbath evening in Scotland, and many other scenes are pourtrayed with deep feeling and appropriate colouring and imagery.

Many of his minor pieces are excellent. He is simple and unaffected both in thought and language, and his descriptions are natural and just. He exhibits great tenderness of sentiment, which runs through all his writings, and sometimes deepens into a very affecting pathos.

SABBATH MORNING.

How still the morning of the hallow'd day!
Mute is the voice of rural labour, hush'd

The ploughboy's whistle, and the milk-maid's song-
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers,
That yester-morn bloom'd waving in the breeze.
Sounds the most faint attract the ear-the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating midway up the hill.
Calmness sits throned on yon unmoving cloud.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas,

The blackbird's note comès mellower from the dale;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen;
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals,

The voice of psalms-the simple song of praise.

With dove-like wings, Peace o'er yon village broods; The dizzying mill-wheel rests; the anvil's din

Hath ceased; all, all around is quietness.

Less fearful on this day, the limping hare

Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man,

Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free,
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large;
And, as his stiff unwieldy bulk he rolls,
His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray

But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
On other days the man of toil is doom'd

To eat his joyless bread, lonely; the ground
Both seat and board; screen'd from the winter's cold
And summer's heat, by neighbouring hedge or tree ;
But on this day, embosom'd in his home,

He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;
With those he loves he shares the heart-felt joy
Of giving thanks to God-not thanks of from,
A word and a grimace, but reverently,
With cover'd face and upward earnest eye.

Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air, pure from the city's smoke;
While, wandering slowly up the river side,
He meditates on Him, whose power he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough,
As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom
Around its roots; and while he thus surveys,
With elevated joy, each rural charm,

He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope,
That heaven may be one Sabbath without end.

THE SCOTTISH SERVICE AT CHURCH.

BUT now his steps a welcome sound recalls: Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile, Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe:

Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved ground, The aged man, the bowed down, the blind

Led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes

With pain, and eyes the new-made grave well pleased;
These mingled with the young, the gay, approach
The house of God; these, spite of all their ills,
A glow of gladness feel; with silent praise
They enter in. A placid stillness reigns,
Until the man of God, worthy the name,
Arise and read the annointed shepherd's lays.
His locks of snow, his brow serene, his look
Of love, it speaks, "Ye are my children all
The gray-hair'd man, stooping upon his staff,
As well as he, the giddy child, whose eye

;

Pursues the swallow flitting thwart the dome."
Loud swells the song: O how that simple song,
Though rudely chanted, how it melts the heart,
Commingling soul with soul in one full tide
Of praise, of thankfulness, of humble trust!
Next comes the unpremeditated prayer,
Breathed from the inmost heart, in accents low,
But earnest.-Alter'd is the tone; to man
Are now address'd the sacred speaker's words.
Instruction, admonition, comfort, peace,

Flow from his tongue: O chief let comfort flow!
It is most needed in this vale of tears:

Yes, make the widow's heart to sing for joy;
The stranger to discern the Almighty's shield
Help o'er his friendless head; the orphan child
Feel, 'mid his tears, I have a father still!

'Tis done. But hark that infant querulous voice
Plaint not discordant to a parent's ear;

And see the father raise the white-robed babe
In solemn dedication to the Lord:

The holy man sprinkles with forth-stretch'd hand
The face of innocence; then earnest turns,
And prays a blessing in the name of Him
Who said, Let little children come to me;
Forbid them not: The infant is replaced
Among the happy band: they, smilingly,
In gay attire, hie to the house of mirth,
The poor man's festival, a jubilee day,
Remember'd long.

THE WORSHIP OF GOD, IN THE SOLITUDE OF THE WOODS.

It is not only in the sacred fane

That homage should be paid to the Most High;
There is a temple, one not made with hands-
The vaulted firmament: Far in the woods,
Almost beyond the sound of city chime,
At intervals heard through the breezeless air;
When not the limberest leaf is seen to move,
Save where the linnet lights upon the spray;
When not a floweret bends its little stalk,
Save where the bee alights upon the bloom;-
There, rapt in gratitude, in joy, and love,
The man of God will pass the Sabbath noon;
Silence his praise; his disembodied thoughts,
Loosed from the load of words, will high ascend
Beyond the empyrean-

Nor yet less pleasing at the heavenly throne,
The Sabbath-service of the shepherd-boy,

In some lone glen, where every sound is lull'd
To slumber, save the tinkling of the rill,
Or bleat of lamb, or hovering falcon's cry,
Stretch'd on the sward, he reads of Jesse's son ;
Or sheds a tear o'er him to Egypt sold,

And wonders why he weeps; the volume closed,
With thyme-sprig laid between the leaves, he sings
The sacred lays, his weekly lesson, conn'd
With meikle care beneath the lowly roof,
Where humble lore is learnt, where humble worth
Pines unrewarded by a thankless state.
Thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen,
The shepherd-boy the Sabbath holy keeps,
Till on the heights he marks the straggling bands
Returning homeward from the house of prayer.

PERSECUTION AND SABBATH OF THE COVENANTERS.

WITH them each day was holy, every hour
They stood prepared to die, a people doom'd
To death;-old men, and youths, and simple maids.
With them each day was holy; but that morn
On which the angel said, See where the Lord
Was laid, joyous arose; to die that day

Was bliss. Long ere the dawn, by devious ways,

O'er hills, through woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought
The upland muirs, where rivers, there but brooks,
Dispart to different seas: Fast by such brooks

A little glen is sometimes scoop'd, a plat

With green sward gay, and flowers that strangers seem
Amid the heathery wild, that all around

Fatigues the eye; in solitudes like these,
Thy persecuted children, Scotia, foil'd
A tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws:

There, leaning on his spear, (one of the array,
Whose gleam, in former days, had scathed the rose
On England's banner, and had powerless struck
The infatuate monarch and his wavering host,)
The lyart veteran heard the word of God
By Cameron thunder'd, or by Renwick pour'd
In gentle stream; then rose the song, the loud
Acclaim of praise. The wheeling plover ceased
Her plaint; The solitary place was glad,
And on the distant cairns the watcher's ear
Caught doubtfully at times the breeze-borne note.
But years more gloomy follow'd; and no more
The assembled people dared, in face of day,
To worship God, or even at the dead

Of night, save when the wintry storm raved fierce,
And thunder-peals compell'd the men of blood