Part 1 — LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

Now Nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree, And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Out o'er the grassy lea: Now Phœbus cheers the crystal streams, And glads the azure skies; But nought can glad the weary wight That fast in durance lies. Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, Aloft on dewy wing; The merlè, in his noon-tide bower, Makes woodland echoes ring; The mavis wild wi' mony a note Sings drowsy day to rest: In love and freedom they rejoice, Wi' care nor thrall opprest. Now blooms the lily by the bank, The primrose down the brae; The hawthorne's budding in the glen, And milk-white is the slae; The meanest hind in fair Scotland May rove their sweets amang; But I, the Queen of a' Scotland, Maun lie in prison strang! I was the Queen o' bonnie France, Where happy I hae been; Fu' lightly rase I in the morn, As blythe lay down at e'en: And I'm the sov'reign o' Scotland, And mony a traitor there; Yet here I lie in foreign bands, And never-ending care. My son! my son! may kinder stars Upon thy fortune shine; And may those pleasures gild thy reign, That ne'er wad blink on mine! God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, Or turn their hearts to thee: And, where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, Remember him for me! Oh! soon, to me, may summer suns Nae mair light up the morn! Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds Wave o'er the yellow corn! And in the narrow house o' death Let winter round me rave; And the next flow'rs that deck the spring Bloom on my peaceful grave! Robert Burns.

By cool Siloam's shady rill How sweet the lily grows! How sweet the breath beneath the hill Of Sharon's dewy rose! Lo, such the child whose early feet The paths of peace have trod; Whose secret heart, with influence sweet, Is upward drawn to God. By cool Siloam's shady rill The lily must decay; The rose that blooms beneath the hill Must shortly fade away. Reginald Heber.