The author of "Rustic Lays," an interesting volume of lyric poetry, Margaret Crawford was born on the 4th February 1833, at Gilmerton, in the parish of Liberton, Mid-Lothian. With limited opportunities of attending school, she was chiefly indebted for her elementary training to occasional instructions communicated by her mother. Her father, an operative gardener, removed in 1842 to Torwoodlee, Roxburghshire. It was while living there, under her parents' roof, that, so early as her thirteenth year, she first essayed to write verses. Through the beneficence of Mrs Meiklam of Torwoodlee, whose husband her father served, she was taught dress-making. She subsequently accepted the situation of nurse-maid at Craignish Castle, Argyllshire. In 1852, her parents removed to the village of Stow, in the upper district of Mid-Lothian. An inmate of their humble cottage, she has for some years been employed as a dress-maker. Her "Rustic Lays" appeared in 1855, in an elegant little volume. Of its contents she thus remarks in the preface: "Many of these pieces were composed by the authoress on the banks of the Gala, whose sweet, soft music, mingling with the melodies of the woodland, has often charmed her into forgetfulness of the rough realities of life. Others were composed at the fireside, in her father's cottage, at the hours of the gloamin', when, after the bustle of the day had ceased, the clouds and cares of the present were chased away by the bright dreams of the past, and the happy hopes of the future, till she found that her musings had twined themselves into numbers, and assumed the form in which they now appear."
MY NATIVE LAND.
My native land! my native land!
Where liberty shall firmly stand,
Where men are brave in heart and hand,
In ancient Caledonia!
How dear to me those gurgling rills
That wander free amang the hills!
How sweet to me the sang that fills
The groves o' Caledonia!
They tell me o' a distant isle
Where summer suns for ever smile;
But frae my heart they 'll never wile
My love for Caledonia!
And what are a' their flowery plains,
If fill'd with weeping slav'ry's chains?
Nae foot o' slavery ever stains
My native Caledonia!
Though cauld 's the sun that shed's his rays
O'er Scotland's bonnie woods and braes,
Oh, let me spend my latest days
In ancient Caledonia!
My native land! my native land!
Where liberty shall firmly stand,
Where men are brave in heart and hand—
True sons of Caledonia!
THE EMIGRANT'S FAREWELL.
Land of my fathers, I leave thee in sadness—
Far from my dear native country I roam;
Fondly I cling to the bright scenes of gladness
That shone o'er my heart in my dear happy home.
Far from the home of my childhood I wander,
Far from the friends I may never meet more;
Oft on those visions of bliss I shall ponder—
Visions that memory alone can restore.
Friends of my youth I shall love you for ever—
Closer and firmer ye twine round my heart;
Though now the wide sea our lot may dissever,
Affection and friendship can never depart.
Land of my fathers, I leave thee in sadness—
Dear to my heart thou shalt ever remain!
Oh, when shall I gaze on those bright scenes of gladness?
When shall I visit my country again?
THE STREAM OF LIFE.
