A VISION.

As I stood by yon roofless tower,

Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air, Where th' howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care;

The winds were laid, the air was still,
The stars they shot alang the sky;
The fox was howling on the hill,

And the distant-èchoing glens reply.

The stream, adown its hazelly path,
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's,
Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,*
Whose distant roaring swells and fa's.

The cauld blue north was streaming forth
Her lights, wi' hissing eerie din ;
Athort the lift they start and shift,
Like fortune's favours, tint as win.

* Variation. To join yon river on the Strath.

By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes,
And, by the moonbeam, shook to see
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,

Attir'd as minstrels wont to be.*

Had I a statue been o' stane,

His darin' look had daunted me; And on his bonnet grav'd was plain, The sacred posy-' Libertie !'

And frae his harp sic strains did flow,

Might rous'd the slumb'ring dead to hear;

But, oh! it was a tale of woe,

As ever met a Briton's ear.

He sang wi' joy the former day,
He weeping wail'd his latter times;
But what he said it was nae play,—
I winna ventur't in my rhymes.

To the splendid vision of Liberty which Burns evoked among the ruins of old Lincluden, he was, perhaps, afraid of giving a song in character-the words might have been otherwise than pleasing to those who then held rule in the land. An imperfect copy of this noble poem was printed in Johnson's Musical Museum," burthened at

* Variation. Now looking over firth and fauld,

Her horn the pale-fac'd Cynthia rear'd;
When, lo, in form of minstrel auld,

A stern and stalwart ghaist appear'd.

the close of every verse with a chorus, which interrupted the sentiment:

"A lassie all alone,

Was making her moan,
Lamenting our lads beyond the sea;
In the bloody wars they fa',

And our honour's gane and a',

And broken-hearted we maun die."

:

The scene is chiefly copied from nature: but the wallflower and the ivy, the distant roaring of the Nith, and the fox howling on the hill, seem rather to point to Sweetheart Abbey. Lincluden was a favourite resort of the Poet; and, indeed, a lovelier spot, or one more suitable for meditation, cannot well be imagined." To the south," says John Macdiarmid, in his pleasing account of the place, " appears the ancient town of Dumfries, distant little more than a mile, the spires of which are seen, and the chime of its bells distinctly heard the Clouden laves the banks of what must have formed part of the Abbey garden, and, at a point within view, ends its pilgrimage as a separate stream, by murmuring placidly into the bed of the Nith. Beneath is a fertile haugh or holm, bounded by the newly united streams around: pointing to the south-east, are the remains of a bowlinggreen and flower-garden, the parterres and scrolls of which were visible in 1789; and beyond, an artificial mount, with its spiral walk, turf seat, and tufted trees, once the favourite resort of nuns and monks, and affording a delightful prospect of the surrounding country."

Lincluden was founded by one of the Lords of Galloway in the reign of Malcolm the Fourth-very richly endowed, and tenanted till the year 1400 by Benedictine nuns. The licentious manners of those ladies so exasperated Archibald Douglas, surnamed The Grim, that he turned them out, and changed it to a college, with

a provost and twelve bedesmen. The structure was once a noble one-the ruins are still majestic. It measured 162 feet from north to south, 116 from east to west, and its principal tower rose 100 feet in height. The style is pure Gothic; the choir was rich in carving and sculpture: the roof was treble, and the corbels, from which the ribs of the arches sprung, were grotesquely cut into heads or shields. The beauty of the whole, however, is greatly impaired by the rubbish which chokes up the interior. This may be removed without danger, and were the top of the walls covered with thin freestone, or slate, it would keep the rain from soaking through the joints, and destroying the solid masonry. Marmaduke Constable Maxwell, to whom Lincluden belongs, should think of this; he cannot do a more acceptable action let him not, however, attempt restoration.

ΤΟ

JOHN MAXWELL OF TERRAUGHTY,

ON HIS BIRTH-DAY.

HEALTH to the Maxwell's vet'ran chief!

Health, ay unsour'd by care or grief:
Inspir'd, I turn'd Fate's sybil leaf
This natal morn;

I see thy life is stuff o' prief,

Scarce quite half worn.

This day thou metes three score eleven,
And I can tell that bounteous Heaven
(The second sight, ye ken, is given
To ilka Poet)

On thee a tack o' seven times seven

Will yet bestow it.

If envious buckies view wi' sorrow

Thy lengthen'd days on this blest morrow, May desolation's lang teeth'd harrow,

Nine miles an hour,

Rake them like Sodom and Gomorrah,

In brunstane stoure

But for thy friends, and they are mony,

Baith honest men and lasses bonnie,