For while thus it pouts, her fingers wrestle, Twinkling the audacious leaves between, Till round they turn, and down they nestle : Is not the dear mark still to be seen? Where I find her not, beauties vanish; Is there no method to tell her in Spanish June's twice June since she breathed it with me? Come, bud! show me the least of her traces. Treasure my lady's lightest footfall: Ah! you may flout and turn up your faces, Roses, you are not so fair after all! ROBERT BROWNING. ON A GIRDLE. THAT which her slender waist confined It was my heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer: My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move. A narrow compass! and yet there EDMUND WALLER. THE FLOWER O' DUMBLANE. THE sun has gane down o'er the lofty Ben Lomond, And left the red clouds to preside o'er the scene, While lanely I stray in the calm summer gloamin', To muse on sweet Jessie, the Flower o' Dumblane. How sweet is the brier, wi' its saft fauldin' blossom, And sweet is the birk, wi' its mantle o' green; Yet sweeter and fairer, and dear to this bosom, Is lovely young Jessie, the Flower o' Dumblane. She's modest as ony, and blithe as she 's bonnie, For guileless simplicity marks her its ain; And far be the villain, divested of feeling, Wha'd blight in its bloom the sweet Flower o' Dumblane. Sing on, thou sweet mavis, thy hymn to the e'ening! Thou 'rt dear to the echoes of Calderwood glen: Sae dear to this bosom, sae artless and winning, Is charming young Jessie, the Flower o' Dum blane. How lost were my days till I met wi' my Jessie! The sports o' the city seemed foolish and vain ; I ne'er saw a nymph I would ca' my dear lassie Till charmed wi' sweet Jessie, the Flower o' Dumblane. Though mine were the station o' loftiest grandeur, Amidst its profusion I'd languish in pain, And reckon as naething the height o' its splendor, If wanting sweet Jessic, the Flower o' Dumblane. ROBERT TANNAHILL. THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. Ir is the miller's daughter, That trembles at her ear; And I would be the girdle About her dainty, dainty waist, And her heart would beat against me In sorrow and in rest; And I should know if it beat right, I'd clasp it round so close and tight. And I would be the necklace, And all day long to fall and rise Upon her balmy bosom With her laughter or her sighs; And I would lie so light, so light, I scarce should be unclasped at night. ALFRED TENNYSON. O, SAW YE THE LASS? O, SAW ye the lass wi' the bonny blue een? When night overshadows her cot in the glen, RICHARD RYAN, By dae ar night, the best ov all, To zee my Fanny's smilén fiace; An' dere the stiately trees da grow, A-rockén as the win' da blow, While she da sweetly sleep below, In the stillness o' the night. An' dere at evemen I da goo, A-hoppén auver ghiates an' bars, By twinklen light o' winter stars, When snow da clumper to my shoe; An' zometimes we da slyly catch A chat, an hour upon the stratch, An' piart wi' whispers at the hatch, In the stillness o' the night. An' zometimes she da goo to zome Young nâighbours' housen down the pliace, An' I da wish a vield a mile, WILLIAM BARNES. MARY MORISON. O MARY, at thy window be! It is the wished, the trysted hour! That make the miser's treasure poor: Yestreen when to the trembling string I sat, but neither heard nor saw : O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace Wha for thy sake wad gladly dee? Or canst thou break that heart of his, Whase only faut is loving thee? A thought ungentle canna be ROBERT BURNS. IN THE STILLNESS O' THE NIGHT. DORSET DIALECT. Ov all the housen o' the pliace Ther 's oone wher I da like to call, |