Dear to me is my bonnie white steed; Oft has he helped me at pinch of need.

There are those to whom a sense of religion has come in storm and tempest; there are those whom it has summoned amid scenes of revelry and idle vanity; there are those, too, who have heard its "still small voice" amid rural leisure and placid retirement. But perhaps the knowledge which causeth not to err is most frequently impressed upon the mind during the season of affliction.

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of Lochinvar.

Good wine needs neither bush nor preface to make it welcome. And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr'd.

A rusted nail, placed near the faithful compass, Will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy.

Thou hast had thty day, old dame, but thy sun has long been set. Thou art now the very emblem of an old warhorse turned out on the barren heath; thou hast had thy paces in thy time, but now a broken amble is the best of them.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like young Lochinvar.