Thristlehaugh tie new-mown hay to win;
The busy bees at Todstead-shaw are bringing honey in;
The trouts they loup in ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree;
Auld Coquet-side is Coquet still--but there's nae place for me!

My sun is set, my eyne are wet, cauld poortith now is mine;
Nae mair I'll range by Coquet-side and thraw the gleesome line;
Nae mair I'll see her bonnie stream in spring-bright raiment drest,
Save in the dream that stirs the heart when the weary e'e's at rest.

Oh! were my limbs as ance they were, to jink across the green.
And were my heart as light again as sometime it has been,
And could my fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet,
Then Coquet--hap what might beside--we'd no be lang to meet'

Or had I but the cushat's wing, where'er I list to flee,
And wi' a wish, might wend my way owre hill, and dale, and lea.
'Tis there I'd fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze.
Content to see thee ance again--then sleep beside thy braes!

--_Thomas Doublerday_.

A SONNET.

Go, take thine angle, and with practised line.
Light as the gossamer, the current sweep;
And if thou failest in the calm, still deep,
In the rough eddy may a prize be thine.
Say thou'rt unlucky where the sunbeams shine;
Beneath the shadow, where the waters creep
Perchance the monarch of the brook shall leap--
For fate is ever better than design.

Still persevere; the giddiest breeze that blows,
For thee may blow with fame and fortune rife.
Be prosperous; and what reck if it arose
Out of some pebble with the stream at strife,
Or that the light wind dallied with the boughs?
Thou art successful.--Such is human life!

--_Thomas Doubleday_.

A VISION OF JOYOUS-GARDE.

"And so sir Launcelot brought sir Tristan and La Beate Isoud unto
Joyous-gard, the which was his owne castle that hee had wonne with his
owne hands."--_Malory_.

"Bamburgh ... the great rock-fortress that was known to the Celts as
Dinguardi, and was to figure in Arthurian romance as Joyous Garde ...
"--_C.J. Bates_ (History of Northumberland).

I wandered under winter stars
The lone Northumbrian shore;
And night lay deep in silence on the sea.
Save where, unceasingly,
Among the pillared scaurs
Of perilous Farnes, wild waves for ever more
Breaking in foam,
Sounded as some far strife through the star-haunted gloam.