Memoirs and resolutions of Adam Graeme of Mossgray, including some chronicles of the borough of Fendie

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, The soul that rises with us, our Life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And n...

I grant you that there is much in the earlier childhood, indefinite always and vague as twilight dreams, which proclaims the spiritual and infinite to be nearer to these unconsc...

The priesthood of nature, the mood that can hold communion with her in her every place and time--these come only when the boy’s material age is past, and the childish dreams com...

I am looking out from the deep window of my study, through the sharp air of a frosty, clear November night. There are lights gleaming in some cottage windows, so far down under...

I leaned my back unto an aik, I thought it was a trusty tree; But first it bowed, and syne it brake, And sae did my true love to me.--OLD SONG.

Alas! I do confess I thought all hearts were true, As I did see the whole bright world--how fair! For linked in happy fancies were the twain-- This beautiful--that pure-- And li...

He speired at her mother, he speired at her father, He speired at a’ her kin, But he speiredna the bonnie lass hersel, Nor did her favour win.--KATHERINE JANFARIE.

Oh! wherefore should I busk my heid? Oh! wherefore should I kame my hair? When my true love has me forsook, And says he’ll never loe me mair. Oh, Mart’mas wind! when wilt thou b...

There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars, And the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars-- Is it the gentle star of love? The star of love...

No hope--no hope! let calm lips say, No hope, To whom hope never was; but as for me, This possible is life-- And if you say it is impossible, Yet up, up to your highest cliffs o...

“I beg you will not misunderstand me, Mrs Oswald; I vow to you that this girl shall never cross my threshold, and if William persists in his folly he must choose between her and...

If I may not speak, I pray, All the words I have to say, Where shall I go hide them? Nought say I ’gainst words of thine, Do not listen, father mine-- So you need not chide them...

Oh, youth! for years so many and sweet ’Tis known that thou and I were one; I’ll think it but a fond deceit-- It cannot be that thou art gone; Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolle...

Touch the chords gently-- Those strings are heart-strings, and the sounds they utter-- Be silent when you hear them--are the groanings Of uttermost pain, the sighings of great s...

We must at first endure The simple woe of knowing they are dead-- A soul-sick woe in which no comfort is-- And wish we were beside them in the dust! That anguish dire cannot sus...

On the following morning, a low pony carriage, very little above the rank of a gig, and packed in its lower departments with sundry empty baskets, drew up at the door of the Ban...

Curls are on her brow, not clouds, Smiles are in her eye, Simple, brave, ’mong worldly crowds Looks she to the sky. Joy dwells with her every day, Sorrows touch her as they pass...

Amang the fremd I had wandered lang, Heavy was my heart, and sad my sang; Ae green sod covered a’ my kin, There were storms without, and nae hope within, When through the mist a...

“She is like that harp the winds do play upon; mark her well. She shall tell you what she dreams unwittingly, for her face is no mask--nothing but a veil, and under it you shall...

The morning rises dimly, There are clouds and there is rain, But always the sun is there-- So softly breaking, parting like the mists About the hills, the dismayed sorrow looses...

The auld guidwife’s weelhoordet nits Are round and round divided, And monie lads and lasses’ fates Are there that night decided. Some kindle, couthy, side by side, An’ burn theg...

I would not have a speck rest on his fame Not if it gave me kingdoms-- ’Tis very true that I am poor and friendless, But think you for that reason I would steal Kinsman and land...

Marry, he hath a proper person, a brain indifferent well garnished; comes of a good lineage; hath a bold spirit; poor, I deny not; but what doth your young gallant propose to hi...

William Oswald, the banker’s son, inherited in some degree the disposition of his father; but the bitterness of the original stock was modified in the branch. A grave, decided,...

Saucy fortune, did’st thou smile, I perchance would little heed thee; Think’st thou when thou frown’st, the while For myself I dread thee? Nay, not I--I only vow, If one falls,...

Halbert Graeme was fully bent upon obeying the injunctions of his kinsman, and had already, thanks to his youthful strength, high spirits, and grey pony, made considerable acqua...

“He thinks well of himself, Sir--we all do it; and he thinks well of his fortune--happy he who can! and if myself am well, and my fortune is well, who shall resist me?”--OLD PLAY.

It was the evening of Miss Insches’ party, and two of her guests were already comfortably established in the sacred drawing-room. Next day was the fast day in Fendie, and the Re...

Through the earth there runs a sound Music of green nooks and hills, For Spring, soft-handed, frees the bound Rivers and sweet rills; Trickling, singing, from the fountains, All...

“Mossgray,” said Halbert Graeme, as they sat next morning at their cheerful breakfast-table, “I wish you would come out with me to-day, and see these fields at Shortrigg--they a...

Close by the sunshine is the cloud; And yonder o’er the hills, the shadows pass Like breath; across this field they flit, they hover-- And now ’tis bright, and now ’tis dim, and...

The good Mossgray was pained for the dimness which hung about his adopted child. It was not positive sorrow--it was only a shadowy quietness as of a cloud, and very still and pa...

Mrs Buchanan had a good deal of anxiety about the position and prospects of her daughter. People began to speak of those constant visits of the minister, and now, when it seemed...

The little roundabout Miss Insches began to grow disturbed about the length of her own continuance in office. She saw that very soon her dominion over the dining-room and the dr...

The crisis did come, though not as Miss Insches anticipated. Helen carefully guarded herself, as they returned home, from the society of the Reverend Robert, and managed that th...

At the same bright hour of noon as that on which Helen set out so sadly, commissioned with her mother’s domestic errands, Lilias Maxwell sat in the sunshine upon the mossy steps...

It was past midsummer. Halbert Graeme, younger of Mossgray, was already a famous man in the country-side, and had not his gentle kinsman been more gravely occupied through that...

“Oh, Hope, Alick’s come,” exclaimed Adelaide Fendie one bright August day, as she alighted from the nondescript gig driven by John Brown, and went with her arm linked in her fri...

I do not hope--ah, no!--mine eyes are clear, I see it would be vain; perchance, perchance, Some other heart doth hope and will be blessed; But mine--why should this gladness com...

Open the lattice; let the fresh, soft air Bear in sweet Nature’s psalm; Draw the dim curtain quick--the sun is there, Holy and bright and calm-- And here a heart trembles for ve...

My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky; So was it when my life began, So is it now when I am old-- The child is father to the man, And I would have my days to be B...

Adam Graeme and Hew Murray were sitting together in the large, low room in the Tower of Mossgray, which they both knew so well. Bishop Berkeley was still upon the table, but the...

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.--PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL.

“My new mother wants to see you, Helen; you must come with me to Mossgray to-day; and Isabell at Murrayshaugh begins to be reconciled to Miss Lucy. She was cured of her unbelief...

“Now draws he to the west, and noble clouds Near to his royal person all the day Attend him to his chamber. In his eye, His broad, full, fearless eye, no faint or chill Is visib...