ENVOY. Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite, The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight: Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray There is the mystic home of our delight, And through the dim wood Dian threads her way. BALLADE OF THE TWEED. (LOWLAND SCOTCH.) TO T. W. LANG. The ferox rins in rough Loch Awe, A weary cry frae ony toun; The Spey, that loups o’er linn and fa’, They praise a’ ither streams aboon; They boast their braes o’ bonny Doon: Gie _me_ to hear the ringing reel, Where shilfas sing, and cushats croon By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel! There’s Ettrick, Meggat, Ail, and a’, Where trout swim thick in May and June; Ye’ll see them take in showers o’ snaw Some blinking, cauldrife April noon: Rax ower the palmer and march-broun, And syne we’ll show a bonny creel, In spring or simmer, late or soon, By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel! There’s mony a water, great or sma’, Gaes singing in his siller tune, Through glen and heugh, and hope and shaw, Beneath the sun-licht or the moon: But set us in our fishing-shoon Between the Caddon-burn and Peel, And syne we’ll cross the heather broun By fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel! ENVOY. Deil take the dirty, trading loon Wad gar the water ca’ his wheel, And drift his dyes and poisons doun By fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel! BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER. In torrid heats of late July, In March, beneath the bitter _bise_, He book-hunts while the loungers fly,— He book-hunts, though December freeze; In breeches baggy at the knees, And heedless of the public jeers, For these, for these, he hoards his fees,— Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs. No dismal stall escapes his eye, He turns o’er tomes of low degrees, There soiled romanticists may lie, Or Restoration comedies; Each tract that flutters in the breeze For him is charged with hopes and fears, In mouldy novels fancy sees Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs. With restless eyes that peer and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto evermore is _Spes_! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men’s shelves they take their ease,— Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs! ENVOY. Prince, all the things that tease and please,— Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, cheers, and tears, What are they but such toys as these— Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs? BALLADE OF THE VOYAGE TO CYTHERA. AFTER THÉODORE DE BANVILLE.