POETRY.

THE LAMENT OF THE COVENANT, 1876.* (" IVir hatten gebauel em n stattliches HauS."—BUESCHUED.) WE built of old a stately house, Its pillars were a people's vows,—

The sun is set!

Our house was glorious in its day : We were not worthy there to stay,—

Its am is set.

God's sun on moor and hill arose ; Screamed in its face the kites and crows, And round our towers the eagles came, With beak of blood and wing of flame,— 1Vhene'er it set.

Our holy house they stained with blood, They tore apart its carven wood : The kings we died for trode us down,

The land we loved forgot its own,—

The sun is set.

The house we built in days of old, With bars of iron, with bands of gold, That house has vanished, bars and bands ;

0 for a house not made with hands,—

In Scotland yet !

We turn from all that's past and done, We look to an eternal Sun,—

That shall not set.

Not in the Stewart or the Guelph, Our Covenant stands in God himself.

Behold, a house comes down from heaven,

Behold, a house by God is given,—

To Scotland yet !

The house we loved of old was clay ; Fashioned by man, it passed away. Man's walls of clay must fall aside, God's true house evermore abide,—

Scotland yet !

We loved our Covenant-house, because; It mirrored God's eternal laws ; That ancient Form among us stood, A passing image of the Good.

We hold the old, we hold the new,

We cling to the eternal true,—

Scotland yet !

From hill and moor the shadows fly, A better morning floods the sky ; Above our house, with broken bands, Stretches a House not made with hands,—

In Scotland yet And though that house no more is here, Its very dust to us is dear ; Their bones who built its walls of old

Have long since crumbled into mould,—

Their sun is set.

But may our hands forget their skill,— When we forget Graves that are green on every hill,— Of Scotland yet !

• The Cameronian or "Reformed Presbyterian" Kirk—the most ancient and intensely national of all the fragments of Scotch Presbytery—after remaining separate_ on the ground of the Oovenant for two hundred peen, unites this year with the Free Kirk. The union is Died for Thursday, the 25th Inst.