Volume Iv Part 26 (1/2)
O tell me not of olive groves, Where gold and gems abound; Of deep blue eyes and maiden loves, With every virtue crown'd.
I ask no other ray of joy Life's desert to adorn, Than that sweet bliss, which ne'er can cloy-- The love of Menie Lorn.
THE YOUNG SOLDIER.
AIR--_”The Banks of the Devon.”_
O say not o' war the young soldier is weary, Ye wha in battle ha'e witness'd his flame; Remember his daring when danger was near ye, Forgive ye the sigh that he heaves for his hame.
Past perils he heeds not, nor dangers yet coming, Frae dark-brooding terror his young heart is free; But it pants for the place whar in youth he was roaming; He turns to the north wi' the tear in his e'e.
'Tis remembrance that saftens what war never daunted, 'Tis the hame o' his birth that gives birth to the tear; The warm fondled hopes his first love had implanted, He langs now to reap in his Jeanie sae dear.
An' aften he thinks on the bonnie clear burnie, Whar oft in love's fondness they daff'd their young day; Nae tear then was shedded, for short was the journey 'Tween Jeanie's broom bower and the blaeberry brae.
An' weel does he mind o' that morning, when dressing, In green Highland garb, to cross the wide sea; His auld mither grat when she gi'ed him her blessing-- 'Twas a' that the puir body then had to gi'e.
The black downy plume on his bonnie cheek babbit, As he stood at the door an' shook hands wi' them a'; But sair was his heart, an' sair Jeanie sabbit, Whan down the burn-side she convoy'd him awa'.
Now high-headed Alps an' dark seas divide them, Wilds ne'er imagined in love's early dream; Their Alps then the knowes, whare the lambs lay beside them, Their seas then the hazel an' saugh-shaded stream.
An' wha couldna sigh when memory 's revealing The scenes that surrounded our life's early hame?
The hero whose heart is cauld to that feeling His nature is harsh, and not worthy the name.
THE LAND I LOVE.
The land I lo'e, the land I lo'e, Is the land of the plaid and bonnet blue, Of the gallant heart, the firm and true, The land of the hardy thistle.
Isle of the freeborn, honour'd and blest, Isle of beauty, in innocence dress'd, The loveliest star on ocean's breast Is the land of the hardy thistle.
Fair are those isles of Indian bloom, Whose flowers perpetual breathe perfume; But dearer far are the braes o' broom Where blooms the hardy thistle.
No luscious fig-tree blossoms there, No slaves the scented shrubb'ry rear; Her sons are free as the mountain air That shakes the hardy thistle.
Lovely 's the tint o' an eastern sky, And lovely the lands that 'neath it lie; But I wish to live, and I wish to die In the land of the hardy thistle!
ROBERT L. MALONE.
Robert L. Malone was a native of Anstruther, in Fife, where he was born in 1812. His father was a captain in the navy, and afterwards was employed in the Coast Guard. He ultimately settled at Rothesay, in Bute.
Receiving a common school education, Robert entered the navy in his fourteenth year. He served on board the gun-brig _Marshall_, which attended the Fisheries department in the west; next in the Mediterranean ocean; and latterly in South America. Compelled, from impaired health, to renounce the seafaring life, after a service of ten years, he returned to his family at Rothesay, but afterwards settled in the town of Greenock. In 1845, he became a clerk in the Long-room of the Customs at Greenock, an appointment which he retained till nigh the period of his death. A lover of poetry from his youth, he solaced the hours of sickness by the composition of verses. He published, in 1845, a duodecimo volume of poetry, ent.i.tled, ”The Sailor's Dream, and other Poems,” a work which was well received. His death took place at Greenock on the 6th of July 1850, in his thirty-eighth year. Of modest and retiring dispositions, Malone was unambitious of distinction as a poet.