For this Rome’s frontier foot endear’d, Her armèd heel made holy; And Ages grey as Time’s own beard, Wreathed it with melancholy. Old days it has that live in gleams Of suns for ever setting: A moth-wing’d splendour, faint as dreams, That keeps the fancy fretting. A gorgeous tracing dash’d with gloom, And delicately dusted: To grasp it is to spoil its bloom; ’Twas ours because we trusted. No longer severing our embrace Was Night a sword between us; But richest mystery robed in grace To lock us close, and screen us. She droopt in stars; she whisper’d fair; The wooded crags grew dimmer; The arrow in the lassie’s hair Glanced by a silver glimmer. The ruin-rock renew’d its frown, With terror less transparent, Tho’ all its ghosts are hunted down, And all its knights are errant. The island in the gray expanse, We watch’d with colour’d longing: The mighty river’s old romance Thro’ many channels thronging. Ah, then, what voice was that which shed A breathless scene before us: We heard it, knowing not we heard; It rose around and o’er us. It rose around, it thrill’d with life, And did infuse a spirit To misty shapes of ancient strife: Again I seem to hear it! The voice is clear, the song is wild, And has a quaint transition; The voice is of a careless child Who sings an old tradition. He sings it witless of his power; Beside the rushing eddies, His singing plants the tall white tower Mid shades of knights and ladies. Against the glooming of the west The grey hawk-ruins darken, And hand in hand, half breast to breast, Two lovers gaze and hearken. MILVERSTON WORTHIES. From his sixth year, my brother Davie manifested undeniable symptoms of the divine afflatus, but it was not until fifteen that he commenced his immortal poem, “The Vengeance of Bernardo Caspiato.” He was a delicate, pretty, fair boy, with a spiritual countenance, a noble brow, and abundance of silky brown hair; quite the poet to look at, and very like my dear mother, as we all daily observed. It was expected that he would cover the name of Cleverboots with a halo of glory: unlike some families, we were the first to believe in our hero, and the most constant in our faith in his splendid future. At the epoch referred to, Davie began to tie his collar with a black ribbon, to wear his white throat exposed, and his beautiful hair very long; his appetite did not fail him in private, but at our little réunions he always partook of dry toast and strong green tea; was very silent, abstracted, and averse to men’s society: the women petted him, and called him “all soul.” He was very kind-hearted and sweet-tempered, and rather vain, which was nothing more than natural, considering how he was flattered.