The Banks o’ Doon.

“The Banks o’ Doon,” by Robert Burns (1759-96). Bonnie Doon is in the southwestern part of Scotland. Robert Burns’s old home it close to it. The house has low walls, a thatched roof, and only two rooms. Alloway Kirk and the two bridges so famous in Robert Burns’s verse are near by. This is an enchanted land, and the Scotch people for miles around Ayr speak of the poet with sincere affection. Burns, more than any other poet, has thrown the enchantment of poetry over his own locality.

Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye blume sae fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu’ o’ care.
Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o’ the happy days
When my fause luve was true.
Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o’ my fate.
Aft hae I rov’d by bonnie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o’ its love,
And sae did I o’ mine.
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose
Frae off its thorny tree;
And my fause luver staw the rose,
But left the thorn wi’ me.

Robert Burns.

The Light of Other Days.

Oft in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me:
The smiles, the tears
Of boyhood’s years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
When I remember all
The friends so link’d together
I’ve seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

Thomas Moore.

My Own Shall Come to Me.

If John Burroughs (1837-) had never written any other poem than “My Own Shall Come to Me,” he would have stood to all ages as one of the greatest of American poets. The poem is most characteristic of the tall, majestic, slow-going poet and naturalist. There is no greater line in Greek or English literature than

“I stand amid the eternal ways.”