hing smile, when prone to go,
Arrests me, bids me stay;
Nor joy, nor comfort can I know,
When 'reft of Helen Gray.

I little thought the dark-brown moors,
The dusky mountain's shade,
Down which the wasting torrent pours,
Conceal'd so sweet a maid;
When sudden started from the plain
A sylvan scene and gay,
Where, pride of all the virgin train,
I first saw Helen Gray.

* * * * *

May never Envy's venom'd breath,
Blight thee, thou tender flower!
And may thy head ne'er droop beneath
Affliction's chilling shower!
Though I, the victim of distress,
Must wander far away;
Yet, till my dying hour, I 'll bless
The name of Helen Gray.

THE BONNIE LASS OF BARR.

Of streams that down the valley run,
Or through the meadow glide,
Or glitter to the summer sun,
The Stinshar[74] is the pride.
'Tis not his banks of verdant hue,
Though famed they be afar;
Nor grassy hill, nor mountain blue,
Nor flower bedropt with diamond dew;
'Tis she that chiefly charms the view,
The bonnie lass of Barr.

When rose the lark on early wing,
The vernal tide to hail;
When daisies deck'd the breast of spring,
I sought her native vale.
The beam that gilds the evening sky,
And brighter morning star,
That tells the king of day is nigh,
With mimic splendour vainly try
To reach the lustre of thine eye,
Thou bonnie lass of Barr.

The sun behind yon misty isle,
Did sweetly set yestreen;
But not his parting dewy smile
Could match the smile of Jean.
Her bosom swell'd with gentle woe,
Mine strove with tender war.
On Stinshar's banks, while wild-woods grow,
While rivers to the ocean flow,
With love of thee my heart shall glow,
Thou bonnie lass of Barr.

[74] The English pronouncing the name of this river _Stinkar_, induced
the poet Burns to change it to Lugar.

ROBERT TANNAHILL.

Robert Tannahill was born at Paisley on the 3d of June 1774. His father,
James Tannahill, a silk-gauze weaver, espoused Janet Pollock, daughter
of Matthew Pollock, owner of the small property of Boghall, near Beith;
their family consisted of six sons and one daughter, of whom the future
poet was the fourth child. On his mother's side he inherited a poetical
temperament; she w