d his beadle John, with back so bowed,
Where is _he_ that had never a peer?
Is he too rolled in his mortal shroud?
But where are the snows of yester-year?

II.

Donald the Gay, that steered his steamer
Many a year through the Sound of Mull,
He that was never a Celtic dreamer,
But a captain of captains masterful:
O Death, thou madest the world more dull
When you nailed _him_ down in his narrow bier,
And sent his ghost into Charon's hull;
But where are the snows of yester-year?

III.

Duncan, the bard of rocky Staffin,
Away in the north of rainy Skye:
Has _he_ given over his rimes and daffin',
In the mould of the bleak kirkyard to lie?
His cot was built where the sea-gulls fly,
And his misty isle to his soul was dear;
Ere his song is finished, the bard must die;
But where are the snows of yester-year?

IV.

And Dougal, who carried King Edward's mails
Every day o'er the moor and heather,
Scorning the chill of the winter gales,
And the ten-mile walk in the sultry weather:
Has _he_ too come to the end of his tether
And gone to the ghosts with all his gear,
His whistle, his satchel and strap of leather?
But where are the snows of yester-year?

V.

Prince, they have gone from the regions that knew them,
Gone at the summons that none can resist,
Praise and every honour be to them,
They did their best and they will be missed.
We, too, shall soon be erased from the list
Of workers below in this mortal sphere,
And be no more to those that exist
Than the vanished snows of yester-year.

XX.

THE ISLANDS OF THE NESS.

A fairyland of trees and leafy bowers
Where one may sit and dream the hours away,
Or 'mid the devious walks and alleys stray,
While perfume rises from a world of flowers,
The girdling river, swollen with upland showers,
Sends rippling round to every creek and bay
The vagrant branches of his water-way;
Then gathering up his current's parted powers,
Swiftly-majestic in a broadening bed,
He glistens on by many a chiming spire,
And past the castle's pennoned turrets red,
Till he attain the goal of his desire,
And into the salt sea exulting throws
His subsidy of rains and melted snows.

XXI.

AMERICAN TOURIST LOQUITUR

(AT BERRIEDALE, CAITHNESS).

If I ha