and the pervading genuineness of a deep feeling, even if imperfectly expressed. There was the gloaming of a "waesome light" about his spirit, which shone through his uncertain gifts of utterance, although its power would not have been enough to have preserved his poetry in remembrance, except for two lyrics which reach the very highest level of Scottish song in their completeness and finish of construction, as well as in their simplicity and power. It may be believed from the crudity and imperfection of Thom's other verses that this supreme felicity was accidental, the perfect rapture of some occasional song of a thrush breaking out by its own inspiration after many careless warblings, rather than the deliberate effort of trained skill, and perhaps with little appreciation of their success. Every poet has his moments of supreme success when he reaches beyond his ordinary powers, and execution attains to the level of inspiration, but in most it is seen to be the culmination of trained skill reached by long labor and painstaking effort. There is little, however, in Thom's verse to lead to the expectation of such a flowering of perfect form and expression, and the impression is strong that they are accidental felicities. But, however produced, they give him an indisputable title to a place beside the highest of the Scottish song writers, and will live by their innate grace and power and feeling, when the rest of his work is forgotten, and the record of his strange and unfortunate life swallowed up in oblivion. This is the first one of them, grown from the banks of the Ythan, a little stream near Inverury, where Thom wandered some evening after the day's benumbing labor at the loom:-- YTHANSIDE. I had ae nicht, and only ane, On flo'ry Ythanside; An' kith or kindred I hae nane That dwall by Ythanside; Yet midnicht dream and morning vow, At hame they winna bide, But pu' and pu' my willing heart Awa' to Ythanside. What gars its restless wand'ring wish Seek aye to Ythanside, An' hover round yon fairy bush That spreads o'er Ythanside? I think I see its pawkie boughs, Where lovers weel might hide; An', oh, what heart could safely sit Yon nicht on Ythanside. Could I return and own the scaith I thole frae Ythanside, Would her mild eye bend lythe on me Ance mair on Ythanside? Or would she crush my lowly love Beneath a brow o' pride? I daurna claim and maurna blame Her heart on Ythanside. I 'll rue yon high and heathy seat That hangs o'er Ythanside; I 'll rue the mill where bumies meet; I 'll rue ye, Ythanside. And you, ye moon, wi' luckless licht, Pour'd a' your gowden tide O'er sic a brow! sic e'en yon nicht! Oh, weary Ythanside.