334 BURNS. Oh! may the yearnings, fond and sweet, BURNS. A. A. WATTS. To the ill-starred Burns was given the power of making man's life more venerable, but that of wisely guiding his own life was not given. Destiny-for so in our ignorance we must speakhis faults, the faults of others, proved too hard for him; and that spirit which might have soared, could it but have walked, soon sank to the dust, its glorious faculties trodden under foot in the blossom, and died, we may almost say, without ever having lived. And so kind and warm a soul, so full of inborn riches, of love to all living and lifeless things! How his heart flows out in sympathy over universal nature, and in her bleakest provinces discerns a beauty and a meaning! The daisy falls not unheeded under his ploughshare, nor the ruined nest of that "wee, cowering, timorous beastie," cast forth, after all its provident pains, " to thole the sleety dribble and cranreuch tauld." The "hoar visage" of winter delights him; he dwells with a sad and oft returning fondness in these scenes of solemn desolation; the voice of the tempest becomes an anthem to his ears; he loves to walk in the sounding woods, for "it raises his thoughts to Him that walketh on the wings of the wind." A true poet-soul, for it needs but to be struck, and the sound it yields will be music! But observe him chiefly as he mingles with his brother men. What warm, all-comprehending fellowfeeling, what trustful, boundless love, what generous exaggeration of the object loved! His rustic friend, his nut-brown maiden, are no longer mean and homely, but a hero and a queen, whom he prizes as the paragons of earth. The rough scenes of Scottish life, not seen by him in any Arcadian illusion, but in the rude contradiction, in the smoke and soil of a too harsh reality, are still lovely to him. Poverty is indeed his companion, but love also, and courage; the simple feelings, the worth, the nobleness that dwell under the straw roof, are dear And venerable to his heart; and thus over the lowest provinces of man's existence he pours the glory of his own soul, and they rise in shadow and sunshine, softened and brightened into a beauty which other eyes discern not in the highest. ; He has a just self-consciousness which too often degenerates into pride; yet it is a noble pride for defence, not for offence; no cold suspicious feeling, but a frank and social one. The peasant-poet bears himself, we might say, like a king in exile : he is cast among the low, and feels himself equal to the highest ; yet he claims no rank, that none may be disputed to him. The forward he can repel; the supercilious he can subdue ; pretensions of wealth or ancestry are of no avail with him there is a fire in that dark eye under which the "insolence of condescension" cannot thrive. In his abasement, in his extreme need, he forgets not for a moment the majesty of poetry and manhood. And yet, far as he feels himself above common men, he wanders not apart from them, but mixes warmly in their interests; nay, throws himself into their arms, and, as it were, entreats them to love him. It is moving to see how, in his darkest despondency, this proud being still seeks relief from friendship, unbosoms himself often to the unworthy, and, amid tears, strains to his glowing heart a heart that knows only the name of friendship; and yet "he was quick to learn," a man of keen vision, before whom common disguises afforded no concealment. His understanding saw through the hollow. ness even of accomplished deceivers, but there was a generous credulity in his heart. And so did our peasant show himself among us, a soul like an Æolian harp, in whose trings the vulgar wind, as it passed through them, changea itself into articulate melody." And this was he for whom the world found no fitter business than quarrelling with smugglers and vintners, computing excise-dues upon tallow, and gauging alebarrels. In such toils was that mighty spirit sorrowfully wasted; and a hundred years may pass on, before another such is given us to waste. -CARLYLE. 66 THE MOTHER. A SOFTENING thought of other years, When Lifs was all too bright for tears, A memory of affections fled- The thousand prayers at midnight pour'd, The wasting weariness endured ! To soften our repose !— Whilst never murmur mark'd thy tongue- How, Mother, is thy heart so strong To pity and forbear? What filial fondness e'er repaid, Or could repay, the past?- We muse upon thy kindness shown- "T is only when thy lips are cold, 'Mid myriad memories of old, And not an act--nor look-nor thought Against thy meek control, But with a sad remembrance fraught Wakes anguish in the soul ! On every land -in every clime— Fill'd by that effluence sublime From which her strength she draws, Still is the Mother's heart the same The Mother's lot as tried ; Then, oh! may Nations guard that name THE SNOW STORM. - SWAIN. LITTLE Hannah Lee had left her master's house, soon as the rim of the great moon was seen by her eyes, that had been long anxiously watching it from the window, rising like a joyful dream, over the gloomy mountain-tops; and all by herself she tripped along beneath the beauty of the silent heaven. Still as she kept ascending and descending the knolls that lay in the bosom of the glen she sang to herself a song, a hymn, or a psalm, without the accompaniment of the streams, now all silent in the frost; and ever and anon she stopped to try to count the stars that lay in some more beautiful part of the sky, or gazed on the constellations that she knew, and called them, in her joy, by the names they bore among the shepherds. There were none to hear her voice, or see her smiles, but the ear and eye of Providence. As on she glided, and took her looks from heaven, she saw her own little fireside-her parents waiting for her arrival-the bible opened for worship-her own little room kept so neatly for her, with its mirror hanging by the window, in which to braid her hair by the morning light her bed prepared for her by her mother's hand-the primroses in her garden peeping through the snow-old Tray, who ever welcomed her with his dim white eyes-the pony and the cow-friends all, and inmates of that happy household. So stepped she along, while the snow diamonds glittered around her feet, and the frost wove a wreath of lucid pearls round her forehead. She had now reached the edge of the Black-moss, which lay half-way between her master's and her father's dwelling, when she heard a loud noise coming down Glen-Scrae, and in a few seconds she felt on her face some flakes of snow. She looked up the glen, and saw the snow-storm coming down fast as a flood. She felt no fears; but she ceased her song, and, had there been an human eye to look upon it there, it might have seen a shadow upon her face. She continued her course, and felt bolder and bolder every step that brought her nearer to her parents' house. But the snow-storm had now reached the Black-moss, and the broad line of light that had lain in the direction of her home was soon swallowed up, and the child was in utter darkness. She saw nothing but the flakes of snow, interminably intermingled, and furiously wafted in the air, close to her head; she heard nothing but one wild, fierce, fitful howl. The cold became intense, and her little feet and hands were fast being benumbed into insensibility. "It is a fearful change," muttered the child to herself; but still she did not fear, for she had been born in a moorland cottage, and lived all her days among the hardships of the hills. 338 THE SNOW STORM. "What will become of the poor sheep!" thought she,—but still she scarcely thought of her own danger, for innocence, and youth, and joy, are slow to think of aught evil befalling themselves, and, thinking benignly of all living things, forget their own fear in their pity for others' sorrow. At last, she could no longer discern a single mark on the snow, either of human steps, or of the sheep-track, or the foot-print of the wild-fowl. Suddenly, too, she felt out of breath and exhausted—and, shedding tears for herself at last, sank down in the snow. It was now that her heart began to quake with fear. She remembered stories of shepherds lost in the snow-of a mother and a child frozen to death on that very moor-and in a moment, she knew that she was to die. Bitterly did the poor child weep; for death was terrible to her, who, though poor, enjoyed the bright little world of youth and innocence. The skies of heaven were dearer than she knew to her, so were the flowers of earth. She had been happy at her work, happy in her sleep-happy in the kirk on Sabbath. A thousand thoughts had the solitary child—and in her own heart was a spring of happiness, pure and undisturbed as any fount that sparkles unseen all the year through, in some quiet nook among the pastoral hills. But now there was to be an end of all this-she was to be frozen to death, and lie there till the thaw might come; and then her father would find her body, and carry it away to be buried in the kirkyard. The tears were frozen on her cheeks as soon as shed-and scarcely had her little hands strength to clasp themselves together, as the thought of an overruling and merciful Lord came across her heart. Then, indeed, the fears of this religious child were calmed, and she heard without terror the plover's wailing cry, and the deep boom of the bittern sounding in the moss. "I will repeat the Lord's Prayer;" and, drawing her plaid more closely around her, she whispered, beneath its ineffectual cover- "Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name-Thy kingdom come-Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." Had human aid been within fifty yards, it could have been of no avail-eye could not see her ear could not hear her in that howling darkness. But that low prayer was heard in the centre of eternity-and that little sinless child was lying in the snow, beneath the all-seeing eye of God. The maiden, having prayed to her Father in Heaven-then |