JOHN STUART BLACKIE. (_From “Lays of the Highlands and Islands.” By permission of the Walter Scott Publishing Company._) ORKNEY. The parting beam of autumn smiles A farewell o’er these lonely isles; Capped with its fire, the mountains soar Like lighted beacons on the shore, While far beneath, in depth profound, The tides roll through each darksome sound— Those passes where the troubled sea Hurries with roar and revelry; Where waves dash on in headlong haste, By a wide world of waters prest. Here ruined hall and nodding tower Hint darkly at departed power, Their domeless walls, time-worn and gray, Give dimly back the evening ray, Like gleams from days long past away. Saint Magnus! pile of ages fled, Thou temple of the quick and dead! While they who raised thy form sublime Have faded from the things of time; While hands that reared, and heads that planned, Have passed into the silent land, Still hath thy mighty fabric stood ’Mid sweeping blast and sheeted flood. Above thy tower and turrets tall The thunder-cloud hath spread its pall, ... And muttered o’er thine airy height Its bursting accents to the night: Though oft the wild and wintry storm Hath reeled around thy towering form, The mighty pile still proudly rears Its head above the wreck of years. As through thy pillared aisles I tread, Where rest the gone forgotten dead, Each step a mournful echo calls To wander through the dreary walls; The sullen sounds they backward throw, Which falter into whispers low. Each tombstone’s frail and crumbling frame Preserves not e’en an airy name; The lines by Friendship’s fingers traced, Now touched by Time’s, are half effaced; The few faint letters lingering still Are all the dead man’s chronicle. How often have the guests who ranged Thy sacred labyrinths been changed! Of crowds, who sang their anthems here, How still each tongue—how deaf each ear!... But thou like them must pass away Beneath the hand of pale decay; Even now thy towering turrets feel The weight of ages o’er them steal; Thy summit in its airy waste Rocks to the rude and rushing blast; When years that wander o’er thee call Thy time-struck fabric to its fall, Thy mouldering columns lone and gray Shall shelter then the bird of prey; Each worshipless recess shall be Place for their frightful revelry; The raven’s hoarse and funeral note Shall o’er sepulchral ruins float....