THE DYING SOLDIER.

The day-light is fading : the cloud-broken ray
Of the dim setting sun is fast melting away;
And the red hand of war, of its mail glove made light,
From the wet weary brow wipes the cold dews of night.
The cries of the wounded are hushed to repose
Of that sleep that no vision or change ever knows.

Can I think that my hour of existence is near,
Which must tear me for ever from all I hold dear,
From the parents that love me,—the girl I adore ?
Shall I bask in the light of her sweet smile no more?
When she leant on my bosom, and sobbed her adieu,
• Dearest maiden,' I said, ' my heart tarries with you.'
But wounded, and stretched on the field of the slain,
The trumpet of war ne'er shall part us again.
Life darkens around me; its last watch is told,
And the heart that adored you is withered and cold.
My natal star sets in a dark-troubled sky;
For a moment it gleams ; but that moment must fly!

A. B. P.

THE HIGHLANDER.

Many years ago, a poor Highland Soldier, on his return to his na

tive hills, fatigued, as it was supposed, by the length of the march and the heat of the weather, sat down under the shade of a birch tree on the solitary road of Lowran, that winds along the margin of Lochken in Galloway. Here he was found dead, and this incident forms the subject of the following verses.

From the climes of the

sun,
all war-worn and

weary,
The Highlander sped to his youthful abode ;
Fair visions of home cheered the desert so dreary,
Though fierce was the noon-beam, and steep was the

road.

Till, spent with the march that still lengthened before him,

He stopped by the way in a sylvan retreat ; The light shady boughs of the birch-tree waved o'er him,

And the stream of the mountain fell soft at his feet.

He sunk to repose where the red heaths are blended,

One dream of his childhood his fancy passed o'er ; But his battles are fought, and his march now is ended,

The sound of the bagpipe shall wake him no more.

No arm in the day of the conflict could wound him,

Though war launched her thunder in fury to kill ; Now the angel of death in the desert has found him,

And stretched him in peace in the brow of the hill.

Pale autumn spreads o'er him the leaves of the forest,

The fays of the wild chant the dirge of his rest ; And thou, little brook, still the sleeper deplorest, And moistenest the heath-bell that weeps on his breast.

Rev. W. Gillespie.

THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.

AN AMERICAN BALLAD.

A young man lost his mind upon the death of the girl he loved, and

who suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said in his ravings that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses. The great Dismal Swamp is 10 or 12 miles distant from Norfolk; and the lake in the middle of it (about 7 miles long) is called Drummond's pond.

They have made her a grave too cold and damp, For a soul so warm and true, And she's gone to the lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, She paddles her white canoe.

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* And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I'll bide the maid in a cypress tree,
When the footsteps of death are near.'

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds,
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,
And man ne'er trode before,

And when on earth he sunk to sleep,
(If slumbers his eyelids knew,)
He lay where the deadly vines do weep
Their venomous tears, and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!

And near bim the she-wolf stirred the brake,
And the rattlesnake breathed in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
• Oh! when shall I see the dusky lake,
And the white canoe of my

dear !'

He saw the lake—and the meteor bright
Quick o'er its surface played.
• Welcome,' he said, 'my dear one's light !'
And the dim shore echoed for many a night
The name of the death-cold maid !

Till he formed a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him off from the shore ;
Far he followed the meteor spark ;
The winds were high, and the clouds were dark,
And the boat returned no more!

But oft from the Indian hunter's camp,
This lover and maid so true,
Are seen, at the hour of midnight damp,
To cross the lake by the fire-fly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe !

Moore.