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On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey.

Who God doth late and early pray

More of his grace than gifts to lend ;
And entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend;

-This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.

347

Sir H. Wotton.

CCX.

ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER
ABBEY.

ORTALITY, behold and fear
What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones

Sleep within these heaps of stones;
Here they lie, had realms and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands,
Where from their pulpits sealed with dust
They preach, 'In greatness is no trust.'

Here's an acre sown indeed
With the richest royallest seed

That the earth did e'er suck in

Since the first man died for sin :"

Here the bones of birth have cried

'Though gods they were, as men they died!' Here are sands, ignoble things,

Dropt from the ruined sides of kings:

Here's a world of pomp and state
Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

F. Beaumont.

CCXI.

TIME AND LOVE.

HEN I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay,

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate—
That Time will come and take my Love away :

-This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

W. Shakespeare.

CCXII.

AULD ROBIN GRAY.

HEN the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame,

And a' the warld to rest are gane,

The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e,

While my gudeman lies sound by me.

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride;

But saving a croun he had naething else beside :

To make the croun a pund, young Jamie gaed to sea;
And the croun and the pund were baith for me.

He hadna been awa' a week but only twa,

When my father brak his arm, and the cow was stown

awa;

My mother she fell sick, and my Jamie at the sea-
And auld Robin Gray came a-courtin' me.

My father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin ;
I toiled day and night, but their bread I couldna win ;
Auld Rob maintained them baith, and wi' tears in his e'e
Said, Jennie, for their sakes, O, marry me !

My heart it said nay; I looked for Jamie back;

But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack; His ship it was a wrack—why didna Jamie dee?

Or why do I live to cry, Wae's me?

My father urgit sair: my mother didna speak;

But she looked in my face, till my heart was like to break. They gi'ed him my hand, but my heart was at the sea; Sae Auld Robin Gray he was gudeman to me.

I hadna been a wife a week but only four,
When mournfu' as I sat on the stane at the door,
I saw my Jamie's wraith, for I couldna think it he,
Till he said, 'I'm come hame to marry thee.'

O sair did we greet, and muckle did we say ;
We took but ae kiss, and I bad him gang away.
I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee.
O why do I live to say, Wae's me!

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin;
I darena think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin;
But I'll do my best a gude wife to be;

For Auld Robin Gray he is kind unto me.

Lady Anne Lindsay.

CCXIII.

BARTHRAM'S DIRGE.

HEY shot him on the Nine-Stane Rig,
Beside the Headless Cross;

And they left him lying in his blood,
Upon the muir and moss.

They made a bier of the broken bough,
The saugh* and the aspen grey;
And they bore him to the Lady Chapel,
And waked him there all day.

A lady came to that lonely bower,
And threw her robes aside,
She tore her ling-long yellow hair,
And knelt at Barthram's side.

She bathed him in the Lady-Well,
His wounds so deep and sair;

And she plaited a garland for his breast,

And a garland for his hair.

They rowed him in a lily sheet,

And bare him to his earth,

And the Gray Friars sung the dead man's mass, As they passed the Chapel-Garth.

They buried him at the mirk midnight,

When the dew fell cold and still,
When the aspen grey forgot to play,
And the mist clung to the hill.

They dug his grave but a bare foot deep,
By the edge of the Nine-Stane Burn,

And they covered him o'er wi' the heather-flower,
The moss and the lady-fern.

*Saugh, willow.

A Gray Friar stayed upon the grave,
And sang till the morning-tide;
And a friar shall sing for Barthram's soul
While the Headless Cross shall bide.

Old Ballad.

CCXIV.

KEITH OF RAVELSTON.

HE murmur of the mourning ghost
That keeps the shadowy kine,
'Oh, Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!'

Ravelston, Ravelston,

The merry path that leads
Down the golden morning hill,
And through the silver meads;

Ravelston, Ravelston,

The stile beneath the tree,

The maid that kept her mother's kine,
The song that sang she!

She sang her song, she kept her kine,
She sat beneath the thorn

When Andrew Keith of Ravelston
Rode through the Monday morn;

His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring,

His belted jewels shine!

Oh, Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!

Year after year, where Andrew came,
Comes evening down the glade,
And there still sits a moonshine ghost
Where sat the sunshine maid.

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