THE BORDER WIDOW.

My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it all with lily flower;
A braver bower ye ne'er did see,
Than my true love he built for me.

There came a man at mid-day hour,
He heard my song and saw my bower,
And he brought armed men that night,
Who brake my bower, and slew my knight;

He slew my knight to me so dear,

And burnt my bower and drove my gear;
My servants all for life did flee,
And left me in extremity.

I sewed his sheet and made my moan,
I watched his corpse, myself alone;
I watched by night, I watched by day,
No living creature came that way.

I bore his body on my back,
And whyles I went, and whyles I sat,
I digg'd a grave and laid him in,
And happ'd him with the sod so green.

But think na ye my heart was sair
When I laid the mould on his yellow hair;
Oh, think na ye, my heart was woe
When I turned about, away to go?

The man lives not I'll love again,
Since that my comely knight is slain;
With one lock of his yellow hair,

I'll bind my heart for evermair.

Anonymous.

LOVE STRONG IN DEATH.

WE watch'd him, while the moonlight,
Beneath the shadow'd hill,
Seem'd dreaming of good angels,

And all the woods were still.
The brother of two sisters

Drew painfully his breath:

A strange fear had come o'er him,
For love was strong in death.
The fire of fatal fever

Burn'd darkly on his cheek,
And often to his mother

He spoke, or tried to speak ·

"I felt, as if from slumber

I never could awake:

Oh, Mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!
A cold, dead weight is on me—
A heavy weight, like lead:
My hands and feet seem sinking
Quite through my little bed:
I am so tired, so weary-

With weariness I ache:

Oh, Mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!
Some little token give me,

Which I may kiss in sleep-
To make me feel I'm near you,

And bless you though I weep.

My sisters say I'm better

But, then, their heads they shake:

Oh, Mother, give me something

To cherish for your sake!

LOVE STRONG IN DEATH.

Why can't I see the poplar,

The moonlit stream and hill,
Where, Fanny says, good angels

Dream, when the woods are still?
Why can't I see you, Mother?
I surely am awake:

Oh, haste! and give me something
To cherish for your sake!"
His little bosom heaves not;

The fire hath left his cheek:
The fine chord-is it broken?

The strong chord-could it break?
Ah, yes! the loving spirit

Hath wing'd his flight away:

A mother and two sisters

Look down on lifeless clay.

Ebenezer Elliott.

ANGEL VISITS.

I.

"THOU'RT old, grandfather, old and blind,
But ever cheerful, good and kind.
I love, when early Summer blooms,
And meads are lavish of perfumes,
To see thee in thy garden chair,
With silvery locks and forehead bare,
And face upturned, as thou hadst striven
To look through darkness into Heaven.

II.

And oft, when o'er the frozen wold
The wintry tempests whistle cold,

ANGEL VISITS.

When strolling gusts, in sport or ire,
Howl down our chimney at the fire;
When crickets chirrup on the hearth,
As if they shared the children's mirth,
My last day's lesson I repeat,

Or read the Bible at thy feet.

"But now the Summer days have co me,
With song of birds and insect-hum ;
The earth is bright with flowers and leaves :
And swallows dart from cottage eaves;

The shadows through the foliage fall,
Like network on the garden wall;
And ship-like clouds go sailing by,
In the calm ocean of the sky.

IV.

"Around our porch the tendrils twine,
And bind-weeds clasp the eglantine.
The summer day is fair and mild;
Come, lean upon thy little child,
And let me guide thee to thy seat;
I'll do my knitting at thy feet,
And should the time be dull or long,
I'll read, or sing my last new song.

V.

"But far more happy I should be

To sit, and hear, and learn from thee.

Oft when thou'rt musing all alone,

No eye upon thee but my own,

I hear half-spoken words that seem

Replies to questions in a dream,
And watch, observant, from my place,
The placid rapture on thy face.