--O'er Roslin all that dreary night A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 'Twas broader than the watch-fire's light, And redder than the bright moonbeam. It glared on Roslin's castled rock, It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak, And seen from cavern'd Hawthornden. Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie, Each Baron, for a sable shroud, Sheathed in his iron panoply. Seem'd all on fire within, around, Deep sacristy and altar's pale; Shone every pillar foliage-bound, And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail. Blazed battlement and pinnet high, Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair-- So still they blaze, when fate is nigh The lordly line of high Saint Clair. There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold-- Lie buried within that proud chapelle; Each one the holy vault doth hold-- But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle. And each Saint Clair was buried there, With candle, with book, and with knell; But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung The dirge of lovely Rosabelle. _Sir W. Scott_ CCLXXXII _ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN_ I saw where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature's work; A flow'ret crushéd in the bud, A nameless piece of Babyhood, Was in her cradle-coffin lying; Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb For darker closets of the tomb! She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then straight up shut For the long dark: ne'er more to see Through glasses of mortality. Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below? Shall we say, that Nature blind Check'd her hand, and changed her mind Just when she had exactly wrought A finish'd pattern without fault? Could she flag, or could she tire, Or lack'd she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health, and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry That babe or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd, and the pain When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maiméd life? The economy of Heaven is dark, And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark Why human buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral That has his day; while shrivell'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbéd use the conscience sears