TEMPEST AMONG THE HILLS.

ND the Storm is abroad in the mountains!

AND

The crouch'd hollows and all the oracular hills

He fills

With dread voices of power. A roused million or

more

Of wild echoes reluctantly rise from their hoar
Immemorial ambush, and roll in the wake

Of the cloud, whose reflection leaves vivid the lake.
And the wind, that wild robber, for plunder descends
From invisible lands, o'er those black mountain ends;
He howls as he hounds down his prey; and his lash
Tears the hair of the timorous wan mountain-ash,
That clings to the rocks, with her garments all torn,
Like a woman in fear; then he blows his hoarse horn,
And is off, the fierce guide of destruction and terror,
Up the desolate heights, 'mid an intricate error
Of mountain and mist.

There is war in the skies!

Lo! the black-wingèd legions of tempest arise

O'er those sharp splinter'd rocks that are gleaming below

In the soft light, so fair and so fatal, as though

Some seraph burn'd through them, the thunder-bolt

searching

Which the black cloud unbosom'd just now. Lo! the

lurching

And shivering pine-trees, like phantoms, that seem
To waver above, in the dark; and yon stream,
How it hurries and roars, on its way to the white
And paralyzed lake there, appall'd at the sight
Of the things seen in heaven!

Owen Meredith.

B

GLEN-AVIN.

EYOND the grizzly cliffs which guard
The infant rills of Highland Dee,
Where hunter's horn was never heard,
Nor bugle of the forest bee;

'Mid wastes that dern and dreary lie,

One mountain rears his mighty form ;
Disturbs the moon in passing by,

And smiles above the thunder-storm.

There Avin spreads her ample deep,
To mirror cliffs that brush the Wain;

Whose frigid eyes forever weep,

In summer sun and autumn rain.

There matin-hymn was never sung,

Nor vesper,

save the plover's wail;

But mountain eagles breed their young;

Aërial spirits ride the gale.

A hoary sage once lingered there,
Intent to prove some mystic scene,
Though cavern deep, and forest sear
Had whooped November's boisterous reign.

That noontide fell so stern and still,

The breath of nature seemed away : The distant sigh of mountain-rill Alone disturbed that solemn day.

Firm in his magic ring he stood,
When lo! aloft on gray Cairn-Gorm
A form appeared that chilled his blood, -
The giant Spirit of the Storm.

His face was like the spectre wan
Slow gliding from the midnight isle ;
His stature, on the mighty plan

Of smoke-tower o'er the burning pile.

Red, red and grisly were his eyes;
His cap the moon-cloud's silver gray;
His staff the writhèd snake that lies
Pale bending o'er the Milky Way.

He cried, "Away! Begone, begone !
Half-naked, hoary, feeble form!
How darest thou seek my realms alone,
And brave the Spirit of the Storm?"

"And who art thou," the seer replied,
"That bearest destruction on thy brow;
Whose eye no mortal can abide ?

Dread mountain Spirit, what art thou? "

"Within this desert, dank and lone, Since rolled the world a shoreless sea, I've held my elemental throne,

The terror of thy race and thee.

"I wrap the sun of heaven in blood,
Veiling his orient beams of night;
And hide the moon in sable shroud,
Far in the alcove of the night.

"I ride the red bolt's rapid wing;
High on the sweeping whirlwind sail,
And list to hear my tempest sing
Around Glen-Avin's ample wale.

"These everlasting hills are riven;

Their reverend heads are bald and gray; The Greenland waves salute the heaven, And quench the burning stars with spray.

"Who was it reared those whelming waves? Who scalped the brows of old Cairn-Gorm, And scooped these ever-yawning caves? 'Twas I, the Spirit of the Storm!

"And hence shalt thou forevermore

Be doomed to ride the blast with me;
To shriek, amid the tempest's roar,
By fountain, ford, and forest tree."

He waved his sceptre north away;

The Arctic ring was reft asunder; And through the heavens the startling bray Burst louder than the loudest thunder.

The feathery clouds, condensed and curled,
In columns swept the quaking glen;
Destruction down the dale was hurled
O'er bleating flocks and wondering men.

The Grampians groaned beneath the storm; New mountains o'er the correis leaned; Ben-Nevis shook his shaggy form,

And wondered what his sovereign meaned.

Even far on Yarrow's fairy dale,

The shepherd paused in dumb dismay ; There passing shrieks adown the vale Lured many a pitying hind astray.

The Lowthers felt the tyrant's wrath;
Proud Hartfell quaked beneath his brand;
And Cheviot heard the cries of death,
Guarding his loved Northumberland.