16/137 *_Ellen Irwin, or the Braes of Kirtle_. [v.] It may be worth while to observe, that as there are Scotch poems on this subject, in the simple ballad strain, I thought it would be both presumptuous and superfluous to attempt treating it in the same way; and accordingly, I chose a construction of stanza quite new in our language; in fact, the same as that of Buergher's 'Leonora,' except that the first and third lines do not in my stanzas rhyme. At the outset, I threw out a classical image, to prepare the reader for the style in which I meant to treat the story, and so to preclude all comparison. [Note .-- The Kirtle is a river in the southern part of Scotland, on the banks of which the events here related took place.] 244. |