ISAAC WATTS.

"O Yarrow fields! may never never rain Nor dew thy tender blossoms cover, For there was basely slain my love,

My love, as he had not been a lover.

"The boy put on his robes, his robes of

green,

His purple vest, 't was my ain sewing; Ah! wretched me! I little little kenned He was in these to meet his ruin.

"The boy took out his milk-white milkwhite steed,

Unheedful of my dule and sorrow, But e'er the to-fall of the night

He lay a corpse on the Braes of Yarrow.

"Much I rejoiced that waeful waeful day;

I sang, my voice the woods returning, But lang ere night the spear was flown That slew my love, and left me mourning.

"What can my barbarous barbarous father do,

But with his cruel rage pursue me?
My lover's blood is on thy spear,

How canst thou, barbarous man, then
Woo me?

"My happy sisters may be, may be proud;
With cruel and ungentle scoffin,
May bid me seek on Yarrow Braes
My lover nailed in his coffin.

"My brother Douglas may upbraid, up-
braid,

And strive with threatening words to

move me,

My lover's blood is on thy spear,

How canst thou ever bid me love thee?

"Yes, yes, prepare the bed, the bed of love, With bridal sheets my body cover, Unbar, ye bridal maids, the door,

Let in the expected husband lover.

"But who the expected husband husband is?

57

Take aff, take aff these bridal weeds,
And crown my careful head with willow.

"Pale though thou art, yet best, yet best beloved,

O, could my warmth to life restore thee! Ye'd lie all night between my breasts,

No youth lay ever there before thee.

"Pale pale, indeed, O lovely lovely youth,
Forgive, forgive so foul a slaughter,
And lie all night between my breasts,
No youth shall ever lie there after."

Return, return, O mournful mournful
bride,

Return and dry thy useless sorrow:
Thy lover heeds naught of thy sighs,
He lies a corpse on the Braes of Yarrow.

ISAAC WATTS.

[1674-1748.]

THE HEAVENLY LAND.
THERE is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.
There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers;
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heavenly land from ours.
Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.

But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea,
And linger shivering on the brink,
And fear to launch away.

O, could we make our doubts remove,
These gloomy doubts that rise,

His hands, methinks, are bathed in And see the Canaan that we love

slaughter.

Ah me! what ghastly spectre's yon, Comes in his pale shroud, bleeding after?

"Pale as he is, here lay him, lay him down, O, lay his cold head on my pillow;

With unbeclouded eyes,

Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,

Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold
flood,

Should fright us from the shore.