to the slightest summer-breath? If their love was great when often fed at the light of each other's eyes, what was it when Ranald was far off among the sands of Egypt, and Flora left an orphan to pine away in her native glen? Beneath the shadow of the Pyramids he dreamt of Dalness and the deer forest, that was the dwelling of his love—and she, as she stood by the murmurs of that sea-loch, longed for the wings of the osprey, that she might flee away to the war-tents beyond the ocean, and be at rest!

But years a few years-long and lingering as they might seem to loving hearts separated by the roar of seas-yet all too too short when 'tis thought how small a number lead from the cradle to the grave-brought Ranald and Flora once more into each other's arms. Alas! for the poor soldier! for never more was he to behold that face from which he kissed the trickling tears. Like many another gallant youth, he had lost his eyesight from the sharp burning sand—and was led to the shieling of his love like a wandering mendicant who obeys the hand of a child. Nor did his face bear that smile of resignation usually so affecting on the calm countenances of the blind. Seldom did he speak—and his sighs were deeper, longer, and more disturbed than those which almost any sorrow ever wrings from the young. Could it be that he groaned in remorse over some secret crime?

Happy-completely happy, would Flora have been to have tended him like a sister all his dark life long, or, like a daughter, to have sat beside the bed of one whose

hair was getting fast grey, long before its time. Almost all her relations were dead, and almost all her friends away to other glens. But he had returned, and blindness, for which there was no hope, must bind his steps for ever within little room. But they had been betrothed almost from her childhood, and would she if he desired it— fear to become his wife now, shrouded as he was, now and for ever in the helpless dark? From his lips, however, her maidenly modesty required that the words should come; nor could she sometimes help wondering, in half-upbraiding sorrow, that Ranald joyed not in his great affliction to claim her for his wife. Poor were they to be sure-yet not so poor as to leave life without its comforts; and in every glen of her native Highlands, were there not worthy families far poorer than they? But weeks, months, passed on, and Ranald remained in a neighbouring hut, shunning the sunshine, and moaning, it was said, when he thought none were near, both night and day. Sometimes he had been overheard muttering to himself lamentable words-and, blind as his eyes were to all the objects of the real world, it was rumoured up and down the glen, that he saw visions of woful events about to befall one whom he loved.

One midnight he found his way, unguided, like a man walking in his sleep-but although in a hideous trance, he was yet broad awake-to the hut where Flora dwelt, and called on her, in a dirge-like voice, to speak a few words with him ere he died. They sat down together among the heather, on the very spot where the farewell embrace had been given the morning he went

away to the wars; and Flora's heart died within her, when he told her that the Curse under which his forefathers had suffered, had fallen upon him; and that he had seen his wraith pass by in a shroud, and heard a voice whisper the very day he was to die.

And was it Ranald of the Red-Cliff, the bravest of the brave, that thus shuddered in the fear of death like a felon at the tolling of the great prison-bell? Ay, death is dreadful when foreseen by a ghastly superstition. He felt the shroud already bound round his limbs and body with gentle folds, beyond the power of a giant to burst; and day and night the same vision yawned before him—an open grave in the corner of the hill burialground without any kirk.

Flora knew that his days were indeed numbered; for when had he ever been afraid of death-and could his spirit have quailed thus under a mere common dream? Soon was she to be all alone in this world; yet when Ranald should die, she felt that her own days would not be many, and there was sudden and strong comfort in the belief that they would be buried in one grave.

Such were her words to the dying man; and all at once he took her in his arms, and asked her "If she had no fears of the narrow house?" His whole nature seemed to undergo a change under the calm voice of her reply; and he said, "Dost thou fear not then, my Flora, to hear the words of doom?" "Blessed will they be,

if in death we be not disunited."

"Thou too, my wife—

for my wife thou now art on earth, and mayest be so in heaven-thou too, Flora, wert seen shrouded in that

Z

apparition." It was a gentle and gracious summer night-so clear, that the shepherds on the hills were scarcely sensible of the morning's dawn. And there, at earliest daylight, were Ranald and Flora found, on the greensward, among the tall heather, lying side by side, with their calm faces up to heaven, and never more to smile or weep in this mortal world.

AN HOUR'S TALK ABOUT POETRY.

OURS is a poetical age; but has it produced one Great

Poem? Not one.

There is the Plea

Just look at them for a moment. sures of Memory—an elegant, graceful, beautiful, pensive, and pathetic poem, which it does one's eyes good to gaze on-one's ears good to listen to-one's very fingers good to touch, so smooth is the versification and the wire-wove paper. Never will the Pleasures of Memory be forgotten till the world is in its dotage. But is it a Great Poem? About as much so as an ant-hill, prettily grassgrown and leaf-strewn, is a mountain purple with heather and golden with woods. It is a symmetrical erectionin the shape of a cone-and the apex points heavenwards; but 'tis not a sky-piercer. You take it at a hop—and pursue your journey. Yet it endures. For the rains and the dews, and the airs and the sunshine, love the fairy knoll, and there it greens and blossoms delicately and delightfully; you hardly know whether a work of art or a work of nature.

Then, there is the poetry of Crabbe. We hear it is not very popular. If so, then neither is human life. For