A VISION. As I stood by yon roofless tower, Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air, Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care. The winds were laid, the air was still, The stream, adown its hazelly path, The cauld blue north was streaming forth By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes, Attired as minstrels wont to be. Had I a statue been o' stane, His darin look had daunted me; And on his bonnet graved was plain, The sacred posy-Libertie ! And frae his harp sic strains did flow, Might roused the slumbering dead to hear; But, oh! it was a tale of wo, As ever met a Briton's ear! He sang wi' joy the former day, SONG. THEIR groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, Where bright-beaming summers exalt the per fume; Far dearer to me yon glen o' green breckan, Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom. Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers, Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly un seen: For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flowers, A-listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean. Though rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valleys, And cauld Caledonia's blast on the wave; Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace, What are they?-The haunt of the tyrant and slave! The slave's spicy forests, and gold bubbling fountains, The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain ; He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains, Save love's willing fetters, the chains o' his Jean. SONG. CHORUS. HERE'S a health to ane I lo'e dear, Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear; Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, And soft as their parting tear-Jessy! Although thou maun never be mine, I mourn through the gay, gaudy day, I guess by the dear angel-smile, 'Gainst fortune's fell cruel decree-Jessy! BESSY AT HER SPINNING-WHEEL. O LEEZE me on my spinning-wheel, On ilka hand the burnies trot, The sun blinks kindly in the biel', On lofty aiks the cushats wail, Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, O wha wad leave this humble state, Amid their flaring, idle toys, ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. BORN 1766-DIED 1823. While THE author of "THE FARMER'S BOY" was born at Hon. His father was a tailor, but ington, in Bedfordshire. Bloomfield lost him while still a child, and to his mother he was indebted for all the education he got. In her widowhood she kept a school for the maintenance of her orphan family. At the age of eleven Robert went into the employment of an uncle who was a farmer. there, his principal duty was to scare the birds from the corn, and such light offices as suited his years. Here he silently and unconsciously accumulated that store of rural images afterwards so pleasingly displayed in "The Farmer's Boy.' " But his intercourse with rural life was soon broken off. He was taken to London by an elder brother, who taught him his own trade of shoemaking. This calling Bloomfield exercised for a good many years; and he had married long before he was known as a poet. Reading had always been his delight, especially poetry; and from admiring he began to imitate, till, almost by accident, some of his verses found a place in a newspaper. Publication, in whatever shape, forms a new era in a poet's existence. A success so flattering as a place in a newspaper induced farther attempts, and The Farmer's Boy was composed, but obtained little notice till it luckily |