* * * * *

Snows muffled earth when thou didst go,
In life's spring-bloom,
Down to the appointed house below--
The silent tomb.
But now the green leaves of the tree,
The cuckoo, and "the busy bee,"
Return, but with them bring not thee,
Casa Wappy!

'Tis so! but can it be--(while flowers
Revive again)--
Man's doom in death--that we and ours
For aye remain?
Oh! can it be that o'er the grave
The grass, renew'd, should yearly wave,
Yet God forget our child to save?
Casa Wappy!

It cannot be; for were it so
Thus man could die,
Life were a mockery--thought were woe,
And truth a lie--
Heaven were a coinage of the brain--
Religion frenzy--virtue vain,
And all our hopes to meet again,
Casa Wappy!

Then be to us, O dear, lost child!
With beam of love,
A star--death's uncongenial wild--
Smiling above!
Soon, soon thy little feet have trod
The skyward path, the seraph's road,
That led thee back from man to God,
Casa Wappy!

Yet, 'tis sweet balm to our despair,
Fond, fairest boy,
That heaven is God's, and thou art there
With him in joy!
There past are death and all its woes,
There beauty's stream for ever flows,
And pleasure's day no sunset knows,
Casa Wappy!

Farewell, then--for a while farewell,
Pride of my heart!
It cannot be that long we dwell
Thus torn apart--
Time's shadows like the shuttle flee;
And dark howe'er life's night may be,
Beyond the grave I 'll meet with thee,
Casa Wappy!

[49] This touching elegiac poem (which is not unsuitable for music) was
written by Mr Moir on the death of his favourite child, Charles
Bell--familiarly called by him "Casa Wappy"--who died in February 1838,
at the age of four and a half years.

FAREWELL, OUR FATHERS' LAND.

Farewell, our fathers' land,
Valley and fountain!
Farewell, old Scotland's strand,
Forest and mountain!
Then hush the drum and hush the flute,
And be the stirring bagpipe mute--
Such sounds may not with sorrow suit--
And fare thee well, Lochaber!

This plume and plai