Mute nature was roused in the bounds of the glen; The wild deer of Gairtney abandon'd his den
Fled panting away, over river and isle,
Nor once turn'd his eye to the brook of Glen-Gyle.
The fox fled in terror; the eagle awoke,
As slumb'ring he dozed in the shelve of the rock;
Astonish'd, to hide in the moonbeam he flew,
And screw'd the night-heaven till lost in the blue.
Young Malcolm beheld the pale lady approach,
The chieftain salute her, and shrink from her touch.
He saw the Macgregor kneel down on the plain,
As begging for something he could not obtain;
She raised him indignant, derided his stay,
Then bore him on board, set her sail, and away.
Though fast the red bark down the river did glide, Yet faster ran Malcolm adown by its side:
Macgregor! Macgregor!" he bitterly cried;
Macgregor! Macgregor!" the echoes replied.
He struck at the lady, but, strange though it seem,
His sword only fell on the rocks and the stream;
But the groans from the boat, that ascended amain,
Were groans from a bosom in horror and pain.
They reach'd the dark lake, and bore lightly away;
Macgregor is vanish'd for ever and aye!
KILMENY'S RECEPTION BY THE FAIRIES.
They claspit her weste and handis fayre,
They kissit her cheik, and they kembit her hayir;
And runde cam ilka blumyng fere,
Sayn, "Bonnye Kilmeny, ye're welcome here!
Wemyn are freeit of the littand scorne-
Oh, blest be the daye Kilmeny was born!
Now shall the land of the spiritis see,
Now shall it ken quhat ane womyn may be!
Mony long eir, in sorrow and pain,
Mony long eir thro' the worild we haif gane,
Comyshonit to watch fayir womynkinde,
For it's they quha nurice the immortyl minde.
We haif watchit their stepis as the dawnyng shone,
And deip in the greinwudde walkis alone,
By lilye bouir, and silken bedde,
The viewless teiris haif ouir them shedde;
Haif soothit their ardent myndis to sleep,
Or left the cuche of luife to weip.
We haif sein! we have sein!-but the tyme mene come,
And the angelis will blush at the day of doom!
Oh, wald the fayrest of mortyl kynde
Aye keipe thilke holye troths in mynde-
That kyndred spiritis ilk motion see,
Quha watch their wayis with anxious e'e,
And grieve for the guilt of humanitye!
Oh, sweit to hevin the maydenis prayer,
And the siche that hevis ane bosom se fayre!
And deir to hevin the wordis of truthe,
And the praise of vertu fra beautyis muthe!
And deire to the viewless formis of ayre,
The mynde that kythis as the body fayre!
A STERN FATHER'S LATE REPENTANCE.
That morning found rough Tushilaw
In all the father's guise appear;
An end of all his hopes he saw
Shrouded in Mary's gilded bier.
No eye could trace without concern
The suffering warrior's troubled look-
The throbs that heaved his bosom stern
No ear could bear, no heart could brook.
"Woe be to thee, thou wicked dame!
My Mary's prayers and accents mild
Might well have render'd vengeance lame—
This hand could ne'er have slain my child!
"But thou, in frenzied fatal hour,
Reft the sweet life thou gav'st away,
And crush'd to earth the fairest flower
That ever breathed the breeze of day.
"My all is lost, my hope is fled,
The sword shall ne'er be drawn for me;
Unblest, unhonour'd, my grey head-
My child-would I had died for thee!"
The bells tolls o'er a new-made grave;
The lengthen'd funeral train is seen
Stemming the Yarrow's silver wave,
And dark'ning Dryhope holms so green.
THE LADY AND THE FIELD OF BATTLE.
What vision lingers on the heath,
Flitting across the field of death?
Its gliding motion, smooth and still
As vapour on the twilight hill,
Or the last ray of falling even
Shed through the parting clouds of heaven?
Is it a sprite that roams forlorn? Or angel from the bowers of morn, Come down a tear of heaven to shed, In pity o'er the valiant dead?
No vain, no fleeting phantom this!
No vision from the bowers of bliss!
Its radiant eye and stately tread
Bespeak some beauteous mountain maid;
No rose of Eden's bosom meek,
Could match that maiden's moisten'd cheek;
No drifted wreath of morning snow
The whiteness of her lofty brow;
Nor gem of India's purest dye,
The lustre of her eagle eye.
When beauty, Eden's bowers within,
First stretch'd the arm to deeds of sin;
When passion burn'd and prudence slept,
The pitying angels bent and wept.
But tears more soft were never shed,
No, not when angels bow'd the head,
A sigh more mild did never breathe
O'er human nature whelm'd in death,
Nor woe and dignity combine
In face so lovely, so benign,
As Douglas saw that dismal hour,
Bent o'er a corse on Cample-moor —
A lady o'er her shield, her trust,
A brave, an only brother's dust.
What heart of man unmoved can lie,
When plays the smile in beauty's eye?
Or when a form of grace and love
To music's notes can lightly move?
Yes; there are hearts unmoved can see
The smile, the ring, the revelry;
But heart of warrior ne'er could bear
The beam of beauty's crystal tear.
Well was that morn the maxim proved-
The Douglas saw, the Douglas loved.
But now the dreadful strand they gain,
Where rose the sacred dome of the main;
Oft had they seen the place before,
And kept aloof from the dismal shore,
But now it rose before their prow,
And what they beheld they did not know.
The tall grey forms, in close-set file,
Upholding the roof of that holy pile;
The sheets of foam and the clouds of spray,
And the groans that rush'd from the portals grey,
Appall'd their hearts and drove them away.
They wheel'd their bark to the east around,
And moor'd in basin, by rocks imbound;
Then awed to silence, they trode the strand
Where furnaced pillars in order stand,
All framed of the liquid burning levin,
And bent like the bow that spans the heaven,
Or upright ranged in horrid array,
With purfle of green o'er the darksome grey.
Their path was on wondrous pavement of old, Its blocks all cast in some giant mould, Fair hewn and grooved by no mortal hand, With countermure guarded by sea and by land. The watcher Bushella frown'd over their way, Enrobed in the sea-baize, and hooded with grey; The warder that stands by that dome of the deep, With spray-shower and rainbow, the entrance to keep. But when they drew nigh to the chancel of ocean, And saw her waves rush to their raving devotion, Astounded and awed to the antes they clung, And listen'd the hymns in her temple she sung.
The song of the cliff, when the winter winds blow,
The thunder of heaven, the earthquake below,
Conjoin'd, like the voice of a maiden would be,
Compared with the anthem there sung by the sea.
The solemn rows in that darksome den,
Were dimly seen like the forms of men,
Like giant monks in ages agone,
Whom the God of the ocean had sear'd to stone,
And bound in his temple for ever to lean,
In sackcloth of grey and visors of green,
An everlasting worship to keep,
And the big salt tears eternally weep.
So rapid the motion, the whirl, and the boil,
So loud was the tumult, so fierce the turmoil,
Appall'd from those portals of terror they turn,
On pillar of marble their incense to burn.
Around the holy flame they pray—
Then turning their faces all west away,
On angel pavement each bent his knee,
And sung this hymn to the God of the sea.
Matilda of Skye
Alone may lie,
And list to the wind that whistles by;
Sad may she be,
For deep in the sea,
Deep, deep, deep in the sea,
This night her lover shall sleep with me.
She may turn and hide
From the spirits that glide,
And the ghost that stands at her bed-side;
But never a kiss the vow shall seal,
Nor warm embrace her bosom feel;
For far, far down in the floors below,
Moist as this rock-weed, cold as the snow,
With the eel, and the clam, and the pearl of the deep, On soft sea-flowers her lover shall sleep;
And long and sound shall his slumber be
In the coral bowers of the deep with me.
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