Thro' the deep glen of Roslin--where arise Proud castle and chapelle of high St Clair, And Scotland's prowess speaking--we had traced The mazy Esk by cavern'd Hawthornden, Perch'd like an eagle's nest upon the cliffs, And eloquent for aye with Drummond's song-- Through Melville's flowery glades--and down the park Of fair Dalkeith, scaring the antler'd deer 'Neath the huge oaks of Morton and of Monk, Whispering, as stir their boughs the midnight winds. These left behind, with purpling evening, now We stood beside St Michael's holy fane, With its nine centuries of gravestones girt; And, from the slopes of Inveresk, gazed down Upon the Frith of Forth, whose waveless tide Glow'd like a plain of fire. In majesty, O'ercanopied with many-vestured clouds, The mighty sun, low in the farthest west, With orb dilated, o'er the Grampian chain, Mountain up-piled on mountain, huge and blue, Was shedding his last rays, adorn'd the shores Of Fife, with all its towns, and woods, and fields, And bathing Ben-Ean and Ben-Ledi's peaks In hues of amethyst. Ray after ray, From the twin Lomond's conic heights declined, And died away the glory; and, at length, As sank the last, low horizontal beams, And Twilight drew her azure curtains round, From out the south, twinkled the Evening star! VIII. Since then full often hath the snow-drop shown Its early flower--hath summer waved its corn-- Hath autumn shed its leaves--and Arctic gales Brought wintry desolation on their wings! When Memory ponders on that boyish scene, Broken seems almost every tie that links That day to this--and to the child the man: The world is alter'd quite in all its thoughts-- In all its works and ways--its sights and sounds-- With the same name it is another sphere, And by another race inhabited. The old familiar dwellings, with their trees Coeval, mouldering wall, and dovecot rent-- The old familiar faces from the streets, One after one, have now all disappear'd, And sober sires are they who then were sons, Giddy and gay:--a generation new Dwells where they dwelt--whose tongues are silent quite-- Whose bodily forms are reminiscences Fading:--the leaden talisman of Truth Hath disenchanted of its rainbow hues The sky, and robb'd the fields of half their bloom. I start, to conjure from the gulf of death The myriads that have gone to come no more:-- And where is he, the Angler, by whose side That livelong day delightedly I roam'd, While life to both a sunny pastime seem'd? Ask of the winds that from the Atlantic blow, When last they stirr'd the wild-flowers on his grave! DE BURTIN ON PICTURES.