"Gae hame, gae hame, my seven bauld brothers,

Gae hame and blaw your horn! I trow ye wad hae gi'en me the skaith,

But I've gi'en you the scorn.

"Commend me to my grey father,
That wished my saul gude rest;
But wae to my cruel step-dame,
Garr'd burn me on the breast."

"Ah! woe to you, you light woman! An ill death may ye die!

For we left father and sisters at hame Breaking their hearts for thee.'

SCOTT'S BORDER MINSTRELSY.

ALLEN-A-DALE.

ALLEN-A-DALE has no fagot for burning,

Allen-a-Dale has no furrow for turning,

Allen-a-Dale has no fleece for the

spinning,

Yet Allen-a-Dale has red gold for the winning.

Come, read me my riddle! come, hearken my tale!

And tell me the craft of bold Allen

a-Dale.

The Baron of Ravensworth prances in pride,

And he views his domains upon Arkindale side.

The mere for his net, and the land for his game,

The chase for the wild, and the park for the tame;

Yet the fish of the lake, and the deer of the vale,

Are less free to Lord Dacre than Allen-a-Dale!

Allen-a-Dale was ne'er belted a knight,

Though his spur be as sharp, and his blade be as bright; Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord, Yet twenty tall yeomen will draw at his word;

And the best of our nobles his bonnet will vail,

Who at Rere-cross on Stanmore meets Allen-a-Dale.

Allen-a-Dale to his wooing is come; The mother, she asked of his household and home:

"Though the castle of Richmond stand fair on the hill,

My hall," quoth bold Allen, "shows gallanter still;

'Tis the blue vault of heaven, with its crescent so pale,

And with all its bright spangles!" said Allen-a-Dale.

The father was steel, and the mother was stone;

They lifted the latch, and they bade him be gone;

But loud, on the morrow, their wail and their cry:

He had laughed on the lass with his bonny black eye,

And she fled to the forest to hear a love-tale,

And the youth it was told by was Allen-a-Dale!

GLENARA.

SCOTT.

O, HEARD ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale,

Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail?

'Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear;

And her sire and her people are called to her bier.

Glenara came first, with the mourners and shroud;

Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud;

Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around;

They marched all in silence, - they looked on the ground.

In silence they reached, over mountain and moor,

To a heath where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar;

"Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn;Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the stern.

"And tell me, I charge ye, ye clan of my spouse,

Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?"

So spake the rude chieftain; no answer is made,

But each mantle, unfolding, a dagger displayed.

"I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her shroud,"

Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all

wrathful and loud;

"And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem;

Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!"

O, pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween,

When the shroud was unclosed and no lady was seen;

When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn,

'Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn,

"I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief,

I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief;

On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

You put strange memories in my

head.

Not thrice your branching limes have blown

Since I beheld young Laurence dead.

Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies: A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his threat Which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

When thus he met his mother's view,

She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you.

Indeed I heard one bitter word

That scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

There stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door: You changed a wholesome heart to gall.

You held your course without remorse,

To make him trust his modest

worth,

And, last, you fixed a vacant stare,

And slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent,

The gardener Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me,

'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere;

You pine among your halls and

towers:

The languid light of your proud eyes
Is wearied of the rolling hours.
In glowing health, with boundless
wealth,

But sickening of a vague disease, You know so ill to deal with time, You needs must play such pranks as these.

She has halls among the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers, She has farms and she has manors, she can threaten and command, And the palpitating engines snort in steam across her acres, As they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of her land.

There are none of England's daughters who can show a prouder presence;

Upon princely suitors praying, she has looked in her disdain: She has sprung of English nobles, I

was born of English peasants; What was I that I should love her,

save for competence to pain!

66 Quite low born! self-educated! somewhat gifted though by nature, And we make a point by asking him,

of being very kind;

You may speak, he does not hear you; and besides, he writes no satire,

All these serpents kept by charmers, leave their natural sting behind."

I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as I stood up there among them, Till, as frost intense will burn you, the cold scorning scorched my brow;

When a sudden silver speaking, gravely cadenced, overrung them,

And a sudden silken stirring touched

my inner nature through.

I looked upward and beheld her! With a calm and regnant spirit,

Slowly round she swept her eyelids, and said clear before them all,

"Have you such superfluous honor, sir, that able to confer it, You will come down, Mr. Bertram, as my guest to Wycombe Hall?"

In that ancient hall of Wycombe, thronged the numerous guests invited,

And the lovely London ladies trod the floors with gliding feet; And their voices low with fashion, not with feeling, softly freighted

All the air about the windows, with elastic laughters sweet.

For at eve, the open windows flung their light out on the terrace, Which the floating orbs of curtains did with gradual shadow

sweep:

While the swans upon the river, fed at morning by the heiress, Trembled downward through their snowy wings at music in their sleep.

And there evermore was music, both of instrument and singing; Till the finches of the shrubberies grew restless in the dark;