The Book of Scottish Song/Lay of the Hopeless

Lay of the Hopeless.

[The two following beautiful lyrics are the production of Robert Miller, who died in Sept. 1834, at the early age of twenty-five. He was a native of Glasgow, and brought up to the profession of the law. He never published any collected volume, but he contributed various poetical pieces of great merit to the periodicals of the day. It is remarkable, that his "Lay of the Hopeless," in which he expresses so deep a heart-weariness of life, was written not many days before he was suddenly cut off.]

Oh! would that the wind that is sweeping now
O'er the restless and weary wave,
Were swaying the leaves of the cypress-bough
O'er the calm of my early grave!
And my heart, with its pulses of fire and life,
Oh! would it were still as stone!
I am weary, weary of all the strife,
And the selfish world I've known.

I've drunk up bliss from a mantling cup,
When youth and joy were mine;
But the cold black dregs are floating up,
Instead of the laughing wine;
And life hath lost its loveliness,
And youth hath spent its hour,
And pleasure palls like bitterness,
And hope hath not a flower.

And love! was it not a glorious eye
That smiled on my early dream?
It is closed for aye where the long weeds sigh
In the churchyard by the stream:
And fame—oh! mine were gorgeous hopes
Of a flashing and young renown:
But early, early the flower-leaf drops
From the withering seed-cup down.

And beauty! have I not worshipp'd all
Her shining creations well?
The rock—the wood—the waterfall,
Where light or where love might dwell.
But over all, and on my heart
The mildew hath faUen sadly—
I have no spirit, I have no part
In the earth that smiles so gladly!

I only sigh for a quiet bright spot
In the churchyard by the stream,
Whereon the morning sunbeams float,
And the stars at midnight dream:
Where only nature's sounds may wake
The sacred and silent air,
And only her beautiful things may break
Through the long grass gathering there!

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