NOW WINTER’S WIND SWEEPS.

    Now winter’s wind sweeps o’er the mountains,
      Deeply clad in drifting snow;
    Soundly sleep the frozen fountains;
      Ice-bound streams forget to flow: 
    The piercing blast howls loud and long,
    The leafless forest oaks among.

    Down the glen, lo! comes a stranger,
      Wayworn, drooping, all alone;—­
    Haply, ’tis the deer-haunt Ranger! 
      But alas! his strength is gone! 
    He stoops, he totters on with pain,
    The hill he ’ll never climb again.

    Age is being’s winter season,
      Fitful, gloomy, piercing cold;
    Passion weaken’d, yields to reason,
      Man feels then himself grown old;
    His senses one by one have fled,
    His very soul seems almost dead.

THE HAWK WHOOPS ON HIGH.

    The hawk whoops on high, and keen, keen from yon’ cliff,
    Lo! the eagle on watch eyes the stag cold and stiff;
    The deer-hound, majestic, looks lofty around,
    While he lists with delight to the harp’s distant sound;
    Is it swept by the gale, as it slow wafts along
    The heart-soothing tones of an olden times’ song? 
    Or is it some Druid who touches, unseen,
    “The Harp of the North,” newly strung now I ween?

    ’Tis Albyn’s own minstrel! and, proud of his name,
    He proclaims him chief bard, and immortal his fame!—­
    He gives tongue to those wild lilts that ravish’d of old,
    And soul to the tales that so oft have been told;
    Hence Walter the Minstrel shall flourish for aye,
    Will breathe in sweet airs, and live long as his “Lay;”
    To ages unnumber’d thus yielding delight,
    Which will last till the gloaming of Time’s endless night.

MRS DUGALD STEWART.

Helen D’Arcy Cranstoun, the second wife of the celebrated Professor Stewart, is entitled to a more ample notice in a work on Modern Scottish Song than the limited materials at our command enable us to supply.  She was the third daughter of the Hon. George Cranstoun, youngest son of William, fifth Lord Cranstoun.  She was born in the year 1765, and became the wife of Professor Dugald Stewart on the 26th July 1790.  Having survived her husband ten years, she died at Warriston House, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, on the 28th of July 1838.  She was the sister of the Countess Purgstall (the subject of Captain Basil Hall’s “Schloss Hainfeld"), and of George Cranstoun, a senator of the College of Justice, by the title of Lord Corehouse.

The following pieces from the pen of the accomplished author are replete with simple beauty and exquisite tenderness.

THE TEARS I SHED MUST EVER FALL.

TUNE—­"Ianthe the Lovely."