"If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight; For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey. When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white, When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruined central tower; When buttress and buttress, alternately, Seem framed of ebon and ivory; When silver edges the imagery, And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die; When distant Tweed is heard to rave, And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave, Then go--but go alone the while-- Then view St. David's ruined pile; And, home returning, soothly swear Was never scene so sad and fair!" Three inscriptions--one inside, two in the churchyard, are worth halting by. "HEIR LYIS THE RACE OF YE HOVS OF ZAIR," touches many hearts with its simple pathos. "The Lord is my Light," is the expressive text (self-chosen) on Sir David Brewster's tomb--the greatest master of optics in his day; and the third, covering the remains of a former Melrose schoolmaster was frequently on the lips of Scott: "The earth goeth on the earth, Glist'ring like gold, The earth goes to the earth Sooner than it wold. The earth builds on the earth Castles and towers, The earth says to the earth All shall be ours." If half the grace of Melrose is lost by reason of its environment, the situation of Dryburgh is queenly enough. It is assuredly the most picturesque monastic ruin in Great Britain. Scott's is the all-absorbing name, and as a matter of fact he would himself have become by inheritance the laird of Dryburgh, but for the financial folly of a spendthrift grand-uncle. "The ancient patrimony," he tells us, "was sold for a trifle, and my father, who might have purchased it with ease, was dissuaded by my grandfather from doing so, and thus we have nothing left of Dryburgh but the right of stretching our bones there." So here, the two Sir Walters, the two Lady Scotts, and Lockhart, await the breaking light of morn. Dryburgh, be it noted, is in Berwickshire--in Mertoun parish, where (at Mertoun House) Scott wrote the "Eve of St. John." Not far off is Sandyknowe (not Smailholm, as it is generally designated) Tower, the scene of the ballad, and the cradle of Scott's childhood, where there awoke within him the first real consciousness of life, and where he had his first impressions of the wondrously enchanted land that lay within the comparatively small circle of the Border Country. Ruined Roxburgh, between Tweed's and Teviot's flow, and the palatial Floors Castle represent the best of epochs old and new, and even more than in Scott's halcyon school days is Kelso the "Queen of the South Countrie." Coldstream, lying in sylvan loveliness on the left bank of the Tweed--a noble river here--has been the scene of many a memorable crossing from both countries from the time of Edward I.