I can walk with you up to the ridge of the hill,
   And we’ll talk of the way we have come through the valley;
Down below there a bird breaks into a trill,
   And a groaning slave bends to the oar of his galley.

You are up on the heights now, you pity the slave—­
   “Poor soul, how fate lashes him on at his rowing! 
Yet it’s joyful to live, and it’s hard to be brave
   When you watch the sun sink and the daylight is going.”

We are almost there—­our last walk on this height—­
   I must bid you good-bye at that cross on the mountain. 
See the sun glowing red, and the pulsating light
   Fill the valley, and rise like the flood in a fountain!

And it shines in your face and illumines your soul;
  We are comrades as ever, right here at your going;
You may rest if you will within sight of the goal,
  While I must return to my oar and the rowing.

We must part now?  Well, here is the hand of a friend;
  I will keep you in sight till the road makes its turning
Just over the ridge within reach of the end
  Of your arduous toil,—­the beginning of learning.

You will call to me once from the mist, on the verge,
  “An revoir!” and “Good night!” while the twilight is creeping
Up luminous peaks, and the pale stars emerge? 
  Yes, I hear your faint voice:  “This is rest, and like sleeping!”

ROBERT BRIDGES (Droch).

CORONACH.

     FROM “THE LADY OF THE LAKE,” CANTO III.

He is gone on the mountain,
  He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain
  When our need was the sorest. 
The font, reappearing,
  From the rain-drops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
  To Duncan no morrow: 

The hand of the reaper
  Takes the ears that are hoary;
But the voice of the weeper
  Wails manhood in glory. 
The autumn winds rushing
  Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing
  When blighting was nearest.

Fleet foot on the correi,
  Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,
  How sound is thy slumber! 
Like the dew on the mountain,
  Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
  Thou art gone, and forever!

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

EVELYN HOPE.

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! 
  Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
  She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass. 
  Little has yet been changed, I think;
The shutters are shut,—­no light may pass
   Save two long rays through the hinge’s chink.

Sixteen years old when she died! 
   Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name,—­
It was not her time to love; beside,
   Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares;
   And now was quiet, now astir,—­
Till God’s hand beckoned unawares,
   And the sweet white brow is all of her.