RIDDELLS OF TIVIOTDALE, SCOTLAND.
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"When the heart heaved no sigh, and the eye shed no drop,
But was mingled with joy or enlivened by hope.
But the clouds of misfortune rose darkly the while,
And lorded their gloom o'er the light of our smile;
And the tempest burst forth all too fierce to be braved
By the feeble of form, that we fain would have saved.
It came it hath passed, and away with it borne
The friend of our life who can never return.
"When the song of the bird, and the beauties of spring,
Delight to the land of our fathers shall bring -
When the dew-drops of morn, that no footsteps may press,
Lie lonely and long in the forest's recess -
When the mist of the mountain is melted away
By the breath of the sky and the light of the day,
And the blooms of the primrose, the flower of the thorn,
The land of the living return to adorn;
-
All hearts shall be gay, and in pleasure combine,
But sorrow and sadness depart not from mine,
Since the dwelling is dark, and the chamber is cold,
Of her whom the living no more shall behold.
"When our friends, who have long been away o'er the main,
And have heard not the tale of our trial and pain,
Shall return, and shall hope in our dwelling to find
The friend who was here when they left us behind-
Oh! how, 'mid the sorrow that lies round the heart,
Shall these lips to them e'er have the power to impart
The tidings, that she whom they ask for has fled
From the home of the living, to dwell with the dead?
"Yet, yet 'mid this cold world of death and of ill.
A comfort remains in all suffering still,
For sympathy lives o'er the forms that decay,
And our hope with the dying can pass not away;
And when all the waste of our suffering proves vain,
Our spirits can gather a pleasure from pain-
A self-treasured feeling-the offspring of grief,
Which yields something more to the soul than relief.
The grass that grows green o'er the turf of the tomb
Relieves the dark thought from the depths of its gloom,
And the floweret that opens its white bosom there
Can a tale of the spirit departure declare;
And a feeling of joy like the power of a dream,
Arising to life o'er the bosom would seem,
When we think on the charms which the grave-turf has clad,
And how nature thus stoops to hold faith with the dead.
"Oh still, when the sun in the west sinks away,
-
And the winds from the woodlands their breathings convey –
When the song of the blackbird, aloft on the bough,
Is bidding to day's soft departure adieu,
And the whispers of nature, with voice of the stream,
Awake, and the star comes abroad with its beam,-
I will seek the lone scene, where the relics are laid
Of her whose bright memory remains undecayed;
Nor mortals shall mark there the tears that shall flow
To pleasure the heart, as they soften its woe,
Or know of the peace that can visit the breast
From the thoughts of the beauty of those that are blest."
Robert Riddell (2), fourth son of Robert¹ (1), was born in Tiviot-
dale, Roxburghshire, in 1800; married Margaret Johnston in 1819, and
rented a farm in Cumberland for some years. He emigrated to America
in 1832; his family consisted of ten children, of whom hereafter. He
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