MODESTIE.

I hear a name, half breathed, from lips

That softly lie apart;
Like a distant, dropping melody,

It falls upon my heart.

She sits in beauty by my side,

My first, my only love!

Fair as the spring-dyed earth below,

And pure as Heaven above.

Her glance is fondly fixed on mine,
Her cheek to mine is prest-
And her rich and balmy locks are laid
Across her starry breast!

Yet 'tis not that the clustering curls
That clothe her beaming neck,
Are brighter than the ringlets fair
Our courtly dames that deck.

It's not her air, her mien, her face,
Nor the light in her hazel e'e—
But it's the soft bewitching grace
Of timorous modestie !

The dew-drop in the opening rose,
Can words its beauty tell?

So folded in her silken breast,
This pearl of price doth dwell.

Oh! there's a sweet retiringness,
That's dearer far to Love,

Than the flashing glance and the stately forms
That in conscious beauty move.

A nameless grace, a magic charm,
That tongue can never tell-
It's gone to deck my darling's form
Within her birken dell.

There's beauty in the coal-black eye,
There's pride in the burnish'd brow,
There's magic in the queenly grace,

And the breast of drifted snow.

But were these charms link'd up

An angel might she be!

in one,

Yet still would want the peerless grace
Of witching Modestie.

SONG.

"O was there but one faithful heart."

I.

Oh! was there but one faithful heart That throbb'd for me alone

Oh! had I one dear truthful breast

To clasp unto my own;

I yet the follies of my youth

Might from my bosom tear,

And, fix'd in fondest love and truth,
Enshrine her image there!

II.

I seek no phantom form of bliss,
No seraph from above-

Grant me, ye pitying powers! but this,

A virtuous woman's love:

Whose gentle, soft, endearing sway,

Should from my aching heart Sweep every trace of vice away,

And love and peace impart.

III.

My tears to share, and to my smiles
Smile sweetly back again;
The truest, dearest, purest bliss,

That Heaven bestows on men!

Give me, this stormy heart to stillEach dark stain to remove

And with pure hopes the void to fill, Dear Woman's truth and love.

STANZAS,

COMPOSED IN

DUNFERMLINE CHURCH.*

I.

O Time! thou just expounder of the Past,
Here do I feel thy stern omniscient sway;

I see the pall of blank oblivion cast,

By thee, o'er all that fills Man's little day.
O'er all, save virtuous deeds, which shall remain for aye.

II.

The haughty Abbot, solemn and severe,

Proud and revengeful, who these aisles has trodWhere is he now? his mouldering relics where? Forgotten,-even as he forgot his God!

Once Lord of all these towers, and now without a sod.

* Dunfermline, in Fife, still a romantic and beautiful place, was a favorite residence of the ancient Scottish kings,

"The king sate in Dunfermline town

Drinking the blude red wine,"

is the commencement of one of the finest Scottish ballads.

A number of the

early kings, and hosts of the nobles of Scotland, lie buried in the Abbey; but the spot is most highly distinguished as the tomb of the illustrious Bruce, whose remains rest beneath the pulpit of the present church.