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.

    Before me, looming through the night,
    Darker than night’s sad heart,
  King Ida’s castle on the sheer crag set
    Waked darker sorrow yet
    Within me for the light,
  Beauty, and might of old loves rent apart,
    Time-broken, spent,
  And strewn as old dead winds among the salt-sea bent.

    Till, dreaming of the glittering days,
    And eves with beauty starred,
  Time fell from me as some night-cloud withdrawn,
    And in enchanted dawn,
    All in a golden haze,
  I saw the gleaming towers of Joyous Garde
    In splendour rise,
  Tall, pinnacled, and white to my dream-laden eyes.

    While thither, as in days of old,
    Launcelot homeward came,
  War-wearied, and yet wearier of the strife
    Of love that tore his life;