Such were her words to the dying man; and all at once he took her in his arms, and asked her "If she had no fears of the narrow house?" His whole nature seemed to undergo a change under the calm voice of her reply; and he said, "Dost thou fear not then, my Flora, to hear the words of doom?" "Blessed will they be, if in death we be not disunited." "Thou too, my wife--for my wife thou now art on earth, and mayest be so in heaven--thou too, Flora, wert seen shrouded in that apparition." It was a gentle and gracious summer night--so clear, that the shepherds on the hills were scarcely sensible of the morning's dawn. And there at earliest daylight, were Ranald and Flora found, on the greensward, among the tall heather, lying side by side, with their calm faces up to heaven, and never more to smile or weep in this mortal world. AN HOUR'S TALK ABOUT POETRY. Ours is a poetical age; but has it produced one Great Poem? Not one. Just look at them for a moment. There is "The Pleasures of Memory"--an elegant, graceful, beautiful, pensive, and pathetic poem, which it does one's eyes good to gaze on--one's ears good to listen to--one's very fingers good to touch, so smooth is the versification and the wire-wove paper. Never will "The Pleasures of Memory" be forgotten till the world is in its dotage. But is it a Great Poem? About as much so as an ant-hill, prettily grass-grown and leaf-strewn, is a mountain purple with heather and golden with woods. It is a symmetrical erection--in the shape of a cone--and the apex points heavenwards; but 'tis not a sky-piercer. You take it at a hop--and pursue your journey. Yet it endures. For the rains and the dews, and the airs and the sunshine, love the fairy knoll, and there it greens and blossoms delicately and delightfully; you hardly know whether a work of art or a work of nature. Then there is the poetry of Crabbe. We hear it is not very popular. If so, then neither is human life. For of all our poets, he has most skilfully woven the web and woven the woof of all his compositions with the materials of human life--homespun indeed; but though often coarse, always strong--and though set to plain patterns, yet not unfrequently exceeding fine is the old weaver's workmanship. Ay--hold up the product of his loom between your eye and the light, and it glows and glimmers like the peacock's back or the breast of the rainbow. Sometimes it seems to be but of the "hodden grey;" when sunbeam or shadow smites it, and lo! it is burnished like the regal purple. But did the Boroughmonger ever produce a Great Poem? You might as well ask if he built St Paul's.