Then Kilmeny begged again to see The friends she had left in her own countrye, And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower; To suck the flowers and drink the spring, Oh, then the glen was all in motion; And the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret ran ; When a month and a day had come and gane, To the Comet of 1811. How lovely is this wildered scene, Stranger of heaven! I bid thee hail! Broad pennon of the King of Heaven! From angel's ensign-staff unfurled! Bright herald of the eternal throne! Thy streaming locks so lovely paleOr peace to man, or judgments dire, Stranger of heaven, I bid thee hail! To fling thy vesture o'er the wain? To sail the boundless skies with thee, To brush the embers from the sun, And airy as thine ambient beam! When the Kye comes Hame. Come all ye jolly shepherds I'll tell ye of a secret That courtiers dinna ken; What is the greatest bliss That the tongue o' man can name? "Tis to woo a bonnie lassie When the kye comes hame. Nor arbour of the great- When the kye comes hame, *It was reckoned by many that this was the same which appeared at the birth of our Saviour.-Hogg. comet Then he pours his melting ditty, Then the lavrock frae the blue lift, When the kye comes hame. For his heart is in a flame When the kye comes hame. When the little wee bit heart Rises red in the east, O there's a joy sae dear, That the heart can hardly frame, Then since all nature joins In this love without alloy, When the kye comes hame, The Skylark. Bird of the wilderness, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Blest is thy dwelling-place O to abide in the desert with thee! Wild is thy lay and loud, Love gives it energy, love gave it birth, O'er fell and fountain sheen, Over the cloudlet dim, Over the rainbow's rim, Musical cherub, soar, singing, away! Then, when the gloaming comes, Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! Blest is thy dwelling-place O to abide in the desert with thee! ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, a happy imitator of the old Scottish ballads, and a man of various talents, was born at Blackwood, near Dalswinton, Dumfriesshire, December 7, 1784. His father was gardener to a He and the genius of Burns. His uncle having attained some eminence as a country builder, or mason, Allan was apprenticed to him, with a view to joining or following him in his trade; but this scheme did not hold, and in 1810 he removed to London, and connected himself with the newspaper press. In 1814 he was engaged as clerk of the works, or superintendent, to the late Sir Francis Chantrey, the eminent sculptor, in whose establishment he Mr continued till his death, October 29, 1842. Cunningham was an indefatigable writer. early contributed poetical effusions to the periodical works of the day, and nearly all the songs and fragments of verse in Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (1810) are of his composition, though published by Cromek as undoubted originals. Some of these are warlike and Jacobite, some amatory and devotional (the wild lyrical breathings of Covenanting love and piety among the hills), and all of them abounding in traits of Scottish rural life and primitive manners. As songs, they are not pitched in a key to be popular; but for natural grace and tenderness, and rich Doric simplicity and fervour, these pseudo-antique strains of Mr Cunningham are inimitable. In 1822 he published Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, a dramatic poem, founded on Border story and superstition, and afterwards two volumes of Traditional Tales. Three novels of a similar description, but more diffuse and improbable-namely, Paul Jones, Sir Michael Scott, and Lord Roldan, also proceeded from his fertile pen. In 1832 he appeared again as a poet, with a 'rustic epic,' in twelve parts, entitled The Maid of Elvar. He edited a collection of Scottish songs, in four volumes, and an edition of Burns in eight volumes, to which he prefixed a life of the poet, enriched with new anecdotes and information. To Murray's Family Library he contributed a series of Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, which extended to six volumes, and proved the most popular of all his prose works. His last work (completed just two days before his death) was a Life of Sir David Wilkie, the distinguished artist, in three volumes. All these literary labours were produced in intervals from his stated avocations in Chantrey's studio, which most men would have considered ample employment. His taste and attainments in the fine arts were as remarkable a feature in his history as his early ballad strains; and the prose style of Mr Cunningham, when engaged on a congenial subject, was justly admired for its force and freedom. There was always a freshness and energy about the man and his writings that arrested the attention and excited the imagination, though his genius was but little under the control of a correct or critical judgment. Strong nationality and inextinguishable ardour formed conspicuous traits in his character; and altogether, the life of Mr Cunningham was a fine example of successful original talent and perseverance, undebased by any of the alloys by which the former is too often accompanied. The Young Maxwell. 'Where gang ye, thou silly auld carle? And what do ye carry there?' I'm gaun to the hill-side, thou sodger gentleman, To shift my sheep their lair.' Ae stride or twa took the silly auld carle, An' a gude lang stride took he: "I trow thou to be a feck auld carle, Will ye shaw the way to me?' And he has gane wi' the silly auld carle, 'Light down and gang, thou sodger gentleman, He drew the reins o' his bonnie gray steed, An' lightly down he sprang: Of the comeliest scarlet was his weir coat, He has thrown aff his plaid, the silly auld carle, An' wha was it but the young Maxwell! "Thou killed my father, thou vile South'ron! Draw out yere sword, thou vile South'ron! There's ae sad stroke for my dear auld father! Hame, Hame, Hame. Hame, hame, hame, hame fain wad I be, When the flower is i' the bud, and the leaf is on the tree, The larks shall sing me hame in my ain countrie; O hame, hame, hame, to my ain countrie! The green leaf o' loyalty's begun for to fa', But I'll water't wi' the blude of usurping tyrannie, [Fragment.] Gane were but the winter-cauld, And cauld at my feet, Let nane tell my father, Or my mither sae dear, I'll meet them baith in heaven She's Gane to Dwall in Heaven. She's gane to dwall in heaven, my lassie, O what'l she do in heaven, my lassie! She was beloved by a', my lassie, She was beloved by a'; Low there thou lies, my lassie, A bonnier form ne'er went to the yird, Fu' soon I'll follow thee, my lassie, Thou left me nought to covet ahin', I looked on thy death-cold face, my lassie, I looked on thy death-shut eye, my lassie, Thy lips were ruddy and calm, my lassie, There's naught but dust now mine, lassie, A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea. A wet sheet and a flowing sea, And bends the gallant mast, my boys, O for a soft and gentle wind! I heard a fair one cry; But give to me the snoring breeze, And white waves heaving high; And white waves heaving high, my boys, And merry men are we. There's tempest in yon horned moon, And lightning in yon cloud; My Nanie O. Red rows the Nith 'tween bank and brae, Though heaven and earth should mix in storm, My kind and winsome Nanie O, She holds my heart in love's dear bands, In preaching time sae meek she stands, The world's in love with Nanie ; My breast can scarce contain my heart, I guess what heaven is by her eyes, My Nanie O, my Nanie 0; The flower o' Nithsdale's Nanie O; Love looks frae 'neath her lang brown hair, Tell not, thou star at gray daylight, Nane ken o' me and Nanie 0; The Poet's Bridal-Day Song. O! my love's like the steadfast sun, Or streams that deepen as they run; Nor hoary hairs, nor forty years, Nor moments between sighs and tearsNor nights of thought, nor days of pain, Nor dreams of glory dreamed in vainNor mirth, nor sweetest song which flows To sober joys and soften woes, Can make my heart or fancy flee One moment, my sweet wife, from thee. Even while I muse, I see thee sit We stayed and wooed, and thought the moon Set on the sea an hour too soon; Or lingered 'mid the falling dew, When looks were fond and words were few. Though I see smiling at thy feet Five sons and ae fair daughter sweet; And time, and care, and birth-time woes Have dimmed thine eye, and touched thy rose; To thee, and thoughts of thee, belong All that charms me of tale or song; When words come down like dews unsought, With gleams of deep enthusiast thought, And fancy in her heaven flies free They come, my love, they come from thee. What things should deck our humble bower! A mother's heart shine in thine eye; I think the wedded wife of mine WILLIAM TENNANT. In 1812 appeared a singular mock heroic poem, Anster Fair, written in the ottava rima stanza, since made so popular by Byron in his Beppo and Don Juan. The subject was the marriage of Maggie Lauder, the famous heroine of Scottish song, but the author wrote not for the multitude familiar with Maggie's rustic glory. He aimed at pleasing the admirers of that refined conventional poetry, half serious and sentimental, and half ludicrous and satirical, which was cultivated by Berni, Ariosto, and the lighter poets of Italy. There was classic imagery on familiar subjects-supernatural machinery (as in the Rape of the Lock) blended with the ordinary details of domestic life, and with lively and fanciful description. An exuberance of animal spirits seemed to carry the author over the most perilous ascents, and his wit and fancy were rarely at fault. Such a pleasant sparkling volume, in a style then unhackneyed, was sure of success. 'Anster Fair' sold rapidly, and has since been often republished. The author, WILLIAM TENNANT, is a native of Anstruther, or Anster, who, whilst filling the situation of clerk in a mercantile establishment, studied ancient and modern literature, and taught himself Hebrew. His attainments were rewarded in 1813 with an appointment as parisli schoolmaster, to which was attached a salary of L.40 per annum -a reward not unlike that conferred on Mr Abraham Adams in Joseph Andrews, who being a scholar and man of virtue, was 'provided with a handsome in come of L.23 a-year, which, however, he could not make a great figure with, because he lived in a dear country, and was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.' The author of Anster Fair' has since been appointed to a more eligible and becoming situation-teacher of classical and oriental languages in Dollar Institution, and, more recently, a professor in St Mary's college, St Andrews. He has published some other poetical works-a tragedy on the story of Cardinal Beaton, and two poems, the Thane of Fife, and the Dinging Down of the Cathedral. It was said of Sir David Wilkie that he took most of the figures in his pictures from living characters in the county of Fife, familiar to him in his youth: it is more certain that Mr Tennant's poems are all on native subjects in the same district. Indeed, their strict locality has been against their popularity; but Anster Fair' is the most diversified and richly humorous of them all, and besides being an animated, witty, and agreeable poem, it has the merit of being the first work of the kind in our language. The Monks and Giants of Mr Frere (published under the assumed name of Whistlecraft), from which Byron avowedly drew his Beppo, did not appear till some time after Mr Tennant's poem. Of the higher and more poetical parts of Anster Fair,' we subjoin a specimen : The saffron-elbowed Morning up the slope Of heaven canaries in her jewelled shoes, And throws o'er Kelly-law's sheep-nibbled top Her golden apron dripping kindly dews; And never, since she first began to hop Up heaven's blue causeway, of her beams profuse, Shone there a dawn so glorious and so gay, As shines the merry dawn of Anster market-day. Round through the vast circumference of sky One speck of small cloud cannot eye behold, Save in the east some fleeces bright of dye, That stripe the hem of heaven with woolly gold, Whereon are happy angels wont to lie Lolling, in amaranthine flowers enrolled, That they may spy the precious light of God, For when the first upsloping ray was flung Her form was as the Morning's blithesome star, And on his knees adores her as she gleams; Each little step her trampling palfrey took, Had power a brutish lout to unbrutify and charm! The dawning sun delights to rest his rays! Compared with it, old Sharon's vale, o'ergrown With flaunting roses, had resigned its praise; For why? Her face with heaven's own roses shone, Mocking the morn, and witching men to gaze; And he that gazed with cold unsmitten soul, That blockhead's heart was ice thrice baked beneath the Pole. Her locks, apparent tufts of wiry gold, Lay on her lily temples, fairly dangling, And on each hair, so harmless to behold, A lover's soul hung mercilessly strangling; The piping silly zephyrs vied to unfold The tresses in their arms so slim and tangling, Flung from the blessed East o'er the fair Earth And thrid in sport these lover-noosing snares, abroad. The fair Earth laughs through all her boundless range, Heaving her green hills high to greet the beam; City and village, steeple, cot, and grange, Gilt as with Nature's purest leaf-gold seem; The heaths and upland muirs, and fallows, change Their barren brown into a ruddy gleam, And, on ten thousand dew-bent leaves and sprays, Twinkle ten thousand suns, and fling their petty rays. Up from their nests and fields of tender corn And played at hide-and-seek amid the golden hairs. Her eye was as an honoured palace, where A choir of lightsome Graces frisk and dance; What object drew her gaze, how mean soe'er, Got dignity and honour from the glance; Wo to the man on whom she unaware Did the dear witchery of her eye elance! 'Twas such a thrilling, killing, keen regardMay Heaven from such a look preserve each tender bard! So on she rode in virgin majesty, Charming the thin dead air to kiss her lips, And with the light and grandeur of her eye Shaming the proud sun into dim eclipse; While round her presence clustering far and nigh, On horseback some, with silver spurs and whips, And some afoot with shoes of dazzling buckles, As half the bells of Fife ring loud and swell the Attended knights, and lairds, and clowns with horny |