Come up above the crags, and we'll dance a high- Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide,

They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks He staid his houseless wanderings upon the Collon of gold, side,

And the curls elastic falling, as her head with- There in a cave all under ground he laired his draws; heathy den, They feel her sliding arms from their tranced arms Ah, many a gentleman was fain to earth like hillunfold,

But they dare not look to see the cause:

fox then. With hound and fishing-rod he lived on hill and stream by day,

For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment At night, betwixt his fleet greyhound and his lies

Through all that night of anguish and perilous

amaze;

bonny mare he lay.

It was a summer evening, and, mellowing and still, And neither fear nor wonder can ope their quiver- Glenwhirry to the setting sun lay bare from hill to

For all that valley pastoral held neither house nor tree,

Till out of Night the Earth has rolled her dewy side, But spread abroad and open all, a full fair sight With every haunted mountain and streamy vale below;

When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow morning tide,

The maidens' trance dissolveth so.

Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,
And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends
in vain-

They pined away and died within the year and day,
And ne'er was Anna Grace seen again.

WILLY GILLILAND.

AN ULSTER BALLAD.

Up in the mountain solitudes, and in a rebel ring,
He has worshipped God upon the hill, in spite of
church and king;

And sealed his treason with his blood on Bothwell
Bridge he hath;

So he must fly his father's land, or he must die the
death;

to see,

From Slemish foot to Collon top lay one unbroken

green;

Save where in many a silver coil the river glanced between.

And on the river's grassy bank, even from the morning gray,

He at the angler's pleasant sport had spent the summer day:

Ah! many a time and oft I've spent the summer day from dawn,

And wondered, when the sunset came, where time and care had gone,

Along the reaches curling fresh, the wimpling pools and streams,

Where he that day his cares forgot in these delightful dreams.

His blythe work done, upon a bank the outlaw rested now,

And laid the basket from his back, the bonnet from his brow,

And there, his hand upon the Book, his knee upon the sod,

For comely Claverhouse has come along with grim He filled the lon: ly valley with the gladsome word

Dalzell,

And his smoking rooftree testifies they've done their errand well.

In vain to fly his enemies he fled his native land; Hot persecution waited him upon the Carrick strand;

His name was on the Carrick cross, a price was on his head,

A fortune to the man that brings him in, alive or dead!

And so on moor and mountain, from the Laggan to the Bann,

From house to house, and hill to hill, he lurked an outlawed man.

of God;

And for a persecuted kirk, and for her martyrs dear, And against a godless church and king, he spoke up loud and clear.

And now, upon his homeward way he crossed the
Collon high,

And over bush and bank and brae he sent abroad
his eye,

But all was darkening peacefully in gray and purple haze,

The thrush was silent in the banks, the lark upon the braes

When suddenly shot up a blaze-from the cave's mouth it came;

At last, when in false company he might no longer And troopers' steeds and troopers' caps are glancing

He couched among the heather, and he saw them, The sun shines bright on Carrick wall and Carrick as he lay, Castle gray, With three long yells at parting, ride lightly east And up thine aisle, Saint Nicholas, has ta'en his morning way;

away;

Then down with heavy heart he came, to sorry And to the North-gate sentinel displayeth far and cheer came he,

near

For ashes black were crackling where the green Sea, hill, and tower, and all thereon, in dewy freshwhins used to be, ness clear, And stretched among the prickly coomb, his heart's Save where, behind a ruined wall, himself alone to blood smoking round, view,

From slender nose to breast-bone cleft, lay dead Is peering from the ivy green a bonnet of the blue.

'They've slain my dog, the Philistines! they've ta'en my bonny mare!"

He plunged into the smoky hole; no bonny beast was there

He groped beneath his burning bed, (it burned him to the bone,)

The sun shines red on Carrick wall and Carrick
Castle old,

And all the western buttresses have changed their
gray for gold;

And from thy shrine, Saint Nicholas, the pilgrim

of the sky

Hath gone in rich farewell, as fits such royal votary; Where his good weapon used to be, but broadsword But, as his last red glance he takes down past black

there was none;

He reeled out of the stifling den, and sat down on a stone,

And in the shadows of the night 'twas thus he made his moan

"I am a houseless outcast; I have neither bed nor board,

Slieve-a-true,

He leaveth where he found it first, the bonnet of the blue.

Again he makes the turrets gray stand out before the hill,

Constant as their foundation rock, there is the bonnet still!

Nor living thing to look upon, nor comfort save the And now the gates are opened, and forth in gallant

Lord:

Yet was the good Elijah once in worse extremity; Who succoured him in his distress, He now will succour me;

show

Prick jeering grooms and burghers blythe, and troopers in a row;

But one has little care for jest, so hard bested is he

He now will succour me, I know; and, by His To ride the outlaw's bonny mare, for this at last

holy name,

I'll make the doers of this deed right dearly rue the same!

66

is she!

Down comes her master with a roar, her rider with a groan,

'My bonny mare! I've ridden you when Claver'se The iron and the hickory are thro' and thro' him gone!

rode behind,

And from the thumbscrew and the boot you bore He lies a corpse; and where he sat the outlaw sits me like the wind;

again,

And, while I have the life you saved, on your sleek And once more to his bonny mare he gives the

He ground the sharp spear to a point; then pulled Yet so it was; and still from him descendants not

And meditating black revenge, set forth for Carrick Draw birth and lands, and, let me trust, draw love

town.

of Freedom too.