Robert Hogg was of low stature and of retiring manners. He was fond of humour, but was possessed of the strictest integrity and purity of heart. His compositions are chiefly scattered among the contemporary periodical literature. He contributed songs to the "Scottish and Irish Minstrels" and "Select Melodies" of R. A. Smith; and a ballad, entitled "The Tweeddale Raide," composed in his youth, was inserted by his uncle in the "Mountain Bard." Those which appear in the present work are transcribed from a small periodical, entitled "The Rainbow," published at Edinburgh, in 1821, by R. Ireland; and from the Author's Album, in the possession of Mr Henry Scott Riddell, to whom it was presented by his parents after his decease. In the "Rainbow," several of Hogg's poetical pieces are translations from the German, and from the Latin of Buchanan. All his compositions evince taste and felicity of expression, but they are defective in startling originality and power.[17]
QUEEN OF FAIRIE'S SONG.
Haste, all ye fairy elves, hither to me,
Over the holme so green, over the lea,
Over the corrie, and down by the lake,
Cross ye the mountain-burn, thread ye the brake,
Stop not at muirland, wide river, nor sea:
Hasten, ye fairy elves, hither to me!
Come when the moonbeam bright sleeps on the hill;
Come at the dead of night when all is still;
Come over mountain steep, come over brae,
Through holt and valley deep, through glen-head gray;
Come from the forest glade and greenwood tree;
Hasten, ye fairy elves, hither to me!
Were ye by woodland or cleugh of the brae,
Were ye by ocean rock dash'd by the spray,
Were ye by sunny dell up in the ben,
Or by the braken howe far down the glen,
Or by the river side; where'er ye be,
Hasten, ye fairy elves, hither to me!
Hasten, ye fairy elves, hither to-night,
Haste to your revel sports gleesome and light,
To bathe in the dew-drops, and bask in the Leven,
And dance on the moonbeams far up the heaven,
Then sleep on the rosebuds that bloom on the lea;
Hasten, ye fairy elves, hither to me!
WHEN AUTUMN COMES.
When autumn comes an' heather bells
Bloom bonnie owre yon moorland fells,
An' corn that waves on lowland dales
Is yellow ripe appearing;