and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail.

Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair--
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold,
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

And each St. Clair was buried there
With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung,
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

_Sir W. Scott_

XLVIII

_THE BALLAD OF THE BOAT_

The stream was smooth as glass, we said, 'Arise and let's away:'
The Siren sang beside the boat that in the rushes lay;
And spread the sail, and strong the oar, we gaily took our way.
When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? when shall we find the bay?

The broadening flood swells slowly out o'er cattle-dotted plains,
The stream is strong and turbulent, and dark with heavy rains;
The labourer looks up to see our shallop speed away.
When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? when shall we find the bay?

Now are the clouds like fiery shrouds; the sun, superbly large,
Slow as an oak to woodman's stroke sinks flaming at their marge.
The waves are bright with mirror'd light as jacinths on our way.
When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? when shall we find the bay?

The moon is high up in the sky, and now no more we see
The spreading rivers either bank, and surging distantly
There booms a sullen thunder as of breakers far away.
Now shall the sandy bar be cross'd, now shall we find the bay!

The sea-gull shrieks high overhead, and dimly to our sight
The moonlit crests of foaming waves gleam towering through the night.
We'll steal upon the mermaid soon, and start her from her lay,
When once the sandy bar is cross'd, and we are in the bay.

What rises white and awful as a shroud-enfolded ghost?
What roar of rampant tumult bursts in clangour on the coast?
Pull back! pull back! The raging flood sweeps every oar away.
O stream, is this thy bar of sand? O boat, is this the bay?

_R. Garnett_

XLIX

_VERSES_

_Supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, during his solitary
abode in the island of Juan Fernandez_