Sweet syren, breathe the powerful strain!
  Lochroyan’s Damsel[A] sails the main;
    The chrystal tower enchanted see! 
  “Now break,” she cries, “ye fairy charms!”
  As round she sails with fond alarms,
    “Now break, and set my true love free!”

  Lord Barnard is to greenwood gone,
  Where fair Gil Morrice sits alone,
    And careless combs his yellow hair;
  Ah! mourn the youth, untimely slain! 
  The meanest of Lord Barnard’s train
    The hunter’s mangled head must bear.

  Or, change these notes of deep despair,
  For love’s more soothing tender air: 
    Sing, how, beneath the greenwood tree,
  Brown Adam’s[B] love maintained her truth,
  Nor would resign the exiled youth
    For any knight the fair could see.

  And sing the Hawk of pinion gray,[C]
  To southern climes who winged his way,
    For he could speak as well as fly;
  Her brethren how the fair beguiled,
  And on her Scottish lover smiled,
    As slow she raised her languid eye.

  Fair was her cheek’s carnation glow,
  Like red blood on a wreath of snow;
    Like evening’s dewy star her eye: 
  White as the sea-mew’s downy breast,
  Borne on the surge’s foamy crest,
    Her graceful bosom heaved the sigh.

  In youth’s first morn, alert and gay,
  Ere rolling years had passed away,
    Remembered like a morning dream,
  I heard these dulcet measures float,
  In many a liquid winding note,
    Along the banks of Teviot’s stream.

  Sweet sounds! that oft have soothed to rest
  The sorrows of my guileless breast,
    And charmed away mine infant tears: 
  Fond memory shall your strains repeat,
  Like distant echoes, doubly sweet,
    That in the wild the traveller hears.

  And thus, the exiled Scotian maid,
  By fond alluring love betrayed
    To visit Syria’s date-crowned shore;
  In plaintive strains, that soothed despair,
  Did “Bothwell’s banks that bloom so fair,”
    And scenes of early youth, deplore.

  Soft syren! whose enchanting strain
  Floats wildly round my raptured brain,
    I bid your pleasing haunts adieu! 
  Yet, fabling fancy oft shall lead
  My footsteps to the silver Tweed,
    Through scenes that I no more must view.

[Footnote A:  The Lass of Lochroyan—­In this volume.]

[Footnote B:  See the ballad, entitled, Brown Adam.]

[Footnote C:  See the Gay Goss Hawk.]

NOTES ON SCOTTISH MUSIC, AN ODE.

  Far in the green isle of the west.—­P. 103. v. 2. 
    The Flathinnis, or Celtic paradise.

  Ah! sure, as Hindu legends tell.—­P. 104. v. 1.

The effect of music is explained by the Hindus, as recalling to our memory the airs of paradise, heard in a state of pre-existence—­Vide Sacontala.