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,