“The Banks o’ Doon,” by Robert Burns (1759-96).  Bonnie Doon is in the southwestern part of Scotland.  Robert Burns’s old home it close to it. 
 The house has low walls, a thatched roof, and only two rooms.  Alloway
 Kirk and the two bridges so famous in Robert Burns’s verse are near by. 
 This is an enchanted land, and the Scotch people for miles around Ayr speak of the poet with sincere affection.  Burns, more than any other poet, has thrown the enchantment of poetry over his own locality.

    Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
      How can ye blume sae fair! 
    How can ye chant, ye little birds,
      And I sae fu’ o’ care.

    Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird
      That sings upon the bough;
    Thou minds me o’ the happy days
      When my fause luve was true.

    Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird
      That sings beside thy mate;
    For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
      And wist na o’ my fate.

    Aft hae I rov’d by bonnie Doon,
      To see the woodbine twine,
    And ilka bird sang o’ its love,
      And sae did I o’ mine.

    Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose
      Frae off its thorny tree;
    And my fause luver staw the rose,
      But left the thorn wi’ me.

ROBERT BURNS.

 THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS.

    Oft in the stilly night
      Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
    Fond Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me: 
        The smiles, the tears
        Of boyhood’s years,
      The words of love then spoken;
        The eyes that shone,
        Now dimmed and gone,
      The cheerful hearts now broken! 
    Thus in the stilly night
      Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
    Sad Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me.

    When I remember all
      The friends so link’d together
    I’ve seen around me fall
      Like leaves in wintry weather,
        I feel like one
        Who treads alone
      Some banquet-hall deserted,
        Whose lights are fled,
        Whose garlands dead,
      And all but he departed! 
    Thus in the stilly night
      Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
    Sad Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me.

THOMAS MOORE.

MY OWN SHALL COME TO ME.

If John Burroughs (1837-) had never written any other poem than “My Own Shall Come to Me,” he would have stood to all ages as one of the greatest of American poets.  The poem is most characteristic of the tall, majestic, slow-going poet and naturalist.  There is no greater line in Greek or English literature than

“I stand amid the eternal ways.”

Serene I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea. 
I rave no more ’gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.