Canto Three - The Gathering
I.
Time rolls his ceaseless course. The
race of yore,
Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marvelling boyhood
legends store
Of their strange ventures happed by land or sea,
How are they blotted from the things
that be!
How few, all weak and withered of their force,
Wait on the verge of dark eternity,
Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse,
To sweep them from out sight! Time
rolls his ceaseless course.
Yet live there still who can remember
well,
How, when a mountain chief his bugle blew,
Both field and forest, dingle, cliff;
and dell,
And solitary heath, the signal knew;
And fast the faithful clan around him
drew.
What time the warning note was keenly wound,
What time aloft their kindred banner
flew,
While clamorous war-pipes yelled the gathering sound,
And while the Fiery Cross glanced like
a meteor, round.
II.
The Summer dawn's reflected hue
To purple changed Loch Katrine blue;
Mildly and soft the western breeze
Just kissed the lake, just stirred the
trees,
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy,
Trembled but dimpled not for joy
The mountain-shadows on her breast
Were neither broken nor at rest;
In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the light
Her chalice reared of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn;
The gray mist left the mountain-side,
The torrent showed its glistening
pride;
Invisible in flecked sky The lark sent
clown her revelry:
The blackbird and the speckled thrush
Good-morrow gave from brake and bush;
In answer cooed the cushat dove
Her notes of peace and rest and love.
III.
No thought of peace, no thought of
rest,
Assuaged the storm in Roderick's
breast.
With sheathed broadsword in his hand,
Abrupt he paced the islet strand,
And eyed the rising sun, and laid
His hand on his impatient blade.
Beneath a rock, his vassals' care
Was prompt the ritual to prepare,
With deep and deathful meaning
fraught;
For such Antiquity had taught
Was preface meet, ere yet abroad
The Cross of Fire should take its
road.
The shrinking band stood oft aghast
At the impatient glance he cast;--
Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As, from the cliffs of Benvenue,
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And, high in middle heaven reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
Silenced the warblers of the brake.
IV.
A heap of withered boughs was piled,
Of juniper and rowan wild,
Mingled with shivers from the oak,
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.
Brian the Hermit by it stood,
Barefooted, in his frock and hood.
His grizzled beard and matted hair
Obscured a visage of despair;
His naked arms and legs, seamed o'er,
The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and face
The impending danger of his race
Had drawn from deepest solitude
Far in Benharrow's bosom rude.
Not his the mien of Christian priest,
But Druid's, from the grave released
Whose hardened heart and eye might
brook
On human sacrifice to look;
And much, 't was said, of heathen lore
Mixed in the charms he muttered o'er.
The hallowed creed gave only worse
And deadlier emphasis of curse.
No peasant sought that Hermit's prayer
His cave the pilgrim shunned with
care,
The eager huntsman knew his bound
And in mid chase called off his
hound;'
Or if, in lonely glen or strath,
The desert-dweller met his path
He prayed, and signed the cross
between,
While terror took devotion's mien.
V.
Of Brian's birth strange tales were
told.
His mother watched a midnight fold,
Built deep within a dreary glen,
Where scattered lay the bones of men
In some forgotten battle slain,
And bleached by drifting wind and
rain.
It might have tamed a warrior's heart
To view such mockery of his art!
The knot-grass fettered there the hand
Which once could burst an iron band;
Beneath the broad and ample bone,
That bucklered heart to fear unknown,
A feeble and a timorous guest,
The fieldfare framed her lowly nest;
There the slow blindworm left his
slime
On the fleet limbs that mocked at
time;
And there, too, lay the leader's skull
Still wreathed with chaplet, flushed
and full,
For heath-bell with her purple bloom
Supplied the bonnet and the plume.
All night, in this sad glen the maid
Sat shrouded in her mantle's shade:
She said no shepherd sought her side,
No hunter's hand her snood untied.
Yet ne'er again to braid her hair
The virgin snood did Alive wear;
Gone was her maiden glee and sport,
Her maiden girdle all too short,
Nor sought she, from that fatal night,
Or holy church or blessed rite
But locked her secret in her breast,
And died in travail, unconfessed.
VI.
Alone, among his young compeers,
Was Brian from his infant years;
A moody and heart-broken boy,
Estranged from sympathy and joy
Bearing each taunt which careless
tongue
On his mysterious lineage flung.
Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale
To wood and stream his teal, to wail,
Till, frantic, he as truth received
What of his birth the crowd believed,
And sought, in mist and meteor fire,
To meet and know his Phantom Sire!
In vain, to soothe his wayward fate,
The cloister oped her pitying gate;
In vain the learning of the age
Unclasped the sable-lettered page;
Even in its treasures he could find
Food for the fever of his mind.
Eager he read whatever tells
Of magic, cabala, and spells,
And every dark pursuit allied
To curious and presumptuous pride;
Till with fired brain and nerves
o'erstrung,
And heart with mystic horrors wrung,
Desperate he sought Benharrow's den,
And hid him from the haunts of men.
VII.
The desert gave him visions wild,
Such as might suit the spectre's
child.
Where with black cliffs the torrents
toil,
He watched the wheeling eddies boil,
Jill from their foam his dazzled eyes
Beheld the River Demon rise:
The mountain mist took form and limb
Of noontide hag or goblin grim;
The midnight wind came wild and dread,
Swelled with the voices of the dead;
Far on the future battle-heath
His eye beheld the ranks of death:
Thus the lone Seer, from mankind
hurled,
Shaped forth a disembodied world.
One lingering sympathy of mind
Still bound him to the mortal kind;
The only parent he could claim
Of ancient Alpine's lineage came.
Late had he heard, in prophet's dream,
The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream;
Sounds, too, had come in midnight
blast
Of charging steeds, careering fast
Along Benharrow's shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride;
The thunderbolt had split the pine,--
All augured ill to Alpine's line.
He girt his loins, and came to show
The signals of impending woe,
And now stood prompt to bless or ban,
As bade the Chieftain of his clan.
VIII.
'T was all prepared;--and from the
rock
A goat, the patriarch of the flock,
Before the kindling pile was laid,
And pierced by Roderick's ready blade.
Patient the sickening victim eyed
The life-blood ebb in crimson tide
Down his clogged beard and shaggy
limb,
Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.
The grisly priest, with murmuring
prayer,
A slender crosslet framed with care,
A cubit's length in measure due;
The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave
Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's
grave,
And, answering Lomond's breezes deep,
Soothe many a chieftain's endless
sleep.
The Cross thus formed he held on high,
With wasted hand and haggard eye,
And strange and mingled feelings woke,
While his anathema he spoke:--
IX.
'Woe to the clansman who shall view
This symbol of sepulchral yew,
Forgetful that its branches grew
Where weep the heavens their holiest
dew
On Alpine's dwelling low!
Deserter of his Chieftain's trust,
He ne'er shall mingle with their dust,
But, from his sires and kindred
thrust,
Each clansman's execration just
Shall doom him wrath and woe.'
He paused; -- the word the vassals
took,
With forward step and fiery look,
On high their naked brands they shook,
Their clattering targets wildly
strook;
And first in murmur low,
Then like the billow in his course,
That far to seaward finds his source,
And flings to shore his mustered
force,
Burst with loud roar their answer
hoarse,
'Woe to the traitor, woe!'
Ben-an's gray scalp the accents knew,
The joyous wolf from covert drew,
The exulting eagle screamed afar,--
They knew the voice of Alpine's war.
X.
The shout was hushed on lake and fell,
The Monk resumed his muttered spell:
Dismal and low its accents came,
The while he scathed the Cross with
flame;
And the few words that reached the
air,
Although the holiest name was there,
Had more of blasphemy than prayer.
But when he shook above the crowd
Its kindled points, he spoke aloud:--
'Woe to the wretch who fails to rear
At this dread sign the ready spear!
For, as the flames this symbol sear,
His home, the refuge of his fear,
A kindred fate shall know;
Far o'er its roof the volumed flame
Clan-Alpine's vengeance shall
proclaim,
While maids and matrons on his name
Shall call down wretchedness and
shame,
And infamy and woe.'
Then rose the cry of females, shrill
As goshawk's whistle on the hill,
Denouncing misery and ill,
Mingled with childhood's babbling
trill
Of curses stammered slow;
Answering with imprecation dread,
'Sunk be his home in embers red!
And cursed be the meanest shed
That o'er shall hide the houseless
head
We doom to want and woe!'
A sharp and shrieking echo gave,
Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave!
And the gray pass where birches wave
On Beala-nam-bo.
XI.
Then deeper paused the priest anew,
And hard his laboring breath he drew,
While, with set teeth and clenched
hand,
And eyes that glowed like fiery
brand,
He meditated curse more dread,
And deadlier, on the clansman's head
Who, summoned to his chieftain's
aid,
The signal saw and disobeyed.
The crosslet's points of sparkling wood
He quenched among the bubbling
blood.
And, as again the sign he reared,
Hollow and hoarse his voice was
heard:
'When flits this Cross from man to
man,
Vich-Alpine's summons to his clan,
Burst be the ear that fails to heed!
Palsied the foot that shuns to
speed!
May ravens tear the careless eyes,
Wolves make the coward heart their
prize!
As sinks that blood-stream in the
earth,
So may his heart's-blood drench his
hearth!
As dies in hissing gore the spark,
Quench thou his light, Destruction
dark!
And be the grace to him denied,
Bought by this sign to all beside!
He ceased; no echo gave again
The murmur of the deep Amen.
XII.
Then Roderick with impatient look
From Brian's hand the symbol took:
'Speed, Malise, speed' he said, and
gave
The crosslet to his henchman brave.
'The muster-place be Lanrick mead--
Instant the time---speed, Malise,
speed!'
Like heath-bird, when the hawks
pursue,
A barge across Loch Katrine flew:
High stood the henchman on the prow;
So rapidly the barge-mall row,
The bubbles, where they launched the
boat,
Were all unbroken and afloat,
Dancing in foam and ripple still,
When it had neared the mainland
hill;
And from the silver beach's side
Still was the prow three fathom
wide,
When lightly bounded to the land
The messenger of blood and brand.
XIII.
Speed, Malise, speed! the dun deer's
hide
On fleeter foot was never tied.
Speed, Malise, speed! such cause of
haste
Thine active sinews never braced.
Bend 'gainst the steepy hill thy
breast,
Burst down like torrent from its
crest;
With short and springing footstep
pass
The trembling bog and false morass;
Across the brook like roebuck bound,
And thread the brake like questing
hound;
The crag is high, the scaur is deep,
Yet shrink not from the desperate
leap:
Parched are thy burning lips and
brow,
Yet by the fountain pause not now;
Herald of battle, fate, and fear,
Stretch onward in thy fleet career!
The wounded hind thou track'st not
now,
Pursuest not maid through greenwood
bough,
Nor priest thou now thy flying pace
With rivals in the mountain race;
But danger, death, and warrior deed
Are in thy course--speed, Malise,
speed!
XIV.
Fast as the fatal symbol flies,
In arms the huts and hamlets rise;
From winding glen, from upland
brown,
They poured each hardy tenant down.
Nor slacked the messenger his pace;
He showed the sign, he named the
place,
And, pressing forward like the wind,
Left clamor and surprise behind.
The fisherman forsook the strand,
The swarthy smith took dirk and
brand;
With changed cheer, the mower blithe
Left in the half-cut swath his
scythe;
The herds without a keeper strayed,
The plough was in mid-furrow staved,
The falconer tossed his hawk away,
The hunter left the stag at hay;
Prompt at the signal of alarms,
Each son of Alpine rushed to arms;
So swept the tumult and affray
Along the margin of Achray.
Alas, thou lovely lake! that e'er
Thy banks should echo sounds of
fear!
The rocks, the bosky thickets, sleep
So stilly on thy bosom deep,
The lark's blithe carol from the
cloud
Seems for the scene too gayly loud.
XV.
Speed, Malise, speed! The lake is
past,
Duncraggan's huts appear at last,
And peep, like moss-grown rocks,
half seen
Half hidden in the copse so green;
There mayst thou rest, thy labor
done,
Their lord shall speed the signal
on.--
As stoops the hawk upon his prey,
The henchman shot him down the way.
What woful accents load the gale?
The funeral yell, the female wail!
A gallant hunter's sport is o'er,
A valiant warrior fights no more.
Who, in the battle or the chase,
At Roderick's side shall fill his
place!--
Within the hall, where torch's ray
Supplies the excluded beams of day,
Lies Duncan on his lowly bier,
And o'er him streams his widow's
tear.
His stripling son stands mournful
by,
His youngest weeps, but knows not
why;
The village maids and matrons round
The dismal coronach resound.
XVI. Coronach.
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The font, reappearing,
From the rain-drops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!
The hand of the reaper
Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing
Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing,
When blighting was nearest.
Fleet foot on the correi,
Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever!
XVII.
See Stumah, who, the bier beside
His master's corpse with wonder
eyed,
Poor Stumah! whom his least halloo
Could send like lightning o'er the
dew,
Bristles his crest, and points his
ears,
As if some stranger step he hears.
'T is not a mourner's muffled tread,
Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead,
But headlong haste or deadly fear
Urge the precipitate career.
All stand aghast:--unheeding all,
The henchman bursts into the hall;
Before the dead man's bier he stood,
Held forth the Cross besmeared with
blood;
'The muster-place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal! clansmen,
speed!'
XVIII.
Angus, the heir of Duncan's line,
Sprung forth and seized the fatal
sign.
In haste the stripling to his side
His father's dirk and broadsword tied;
But when he saw his mother's eye
Watch him in speechless agony,
Back to her opened arms he flew
Pressed on her lips a fond adieu,--
'Alas' she sobbed,--'and yet be
gone,
And speed thee forth, like Duncan's
son!'
One look he cast upon the bier,
Dashed from his eye the gathering
tear,
Breathed deep to clear his laboring
breast,
And tossed aloft his bonnet crest,
Then, like the high-bred colt when,
freed,
First he essays his fire and speed,
He vanished, and o'er moor and moss
Sped forward with the Fiery Cross.
Suspended was the widow's tear
While yet his footsteps she could
hear;
And when she marked the henchman's
eye
Wet with unwonted sympathy,
'Kinsman,' she said, 'his race is
run
That should have sped thine errand
on.
The oak teas fallen?--the sapling
bough Is all
Duncraggan's shelter now
Yet trust I well, his duty done,
The orphan's God will guard my
son.--
And you, in many a danger true
At Duncan's hest your blades that
drew,
To arms, and guard that orphan's
head!
Let babes and women wail the dead.'
Then weapon-clang and martial call
Resounded through the funeral hall,
While from the walls the attendant
band
Snatched sword and targe with
hurried hand;
And short and flitting energy
Glanced from the mourner's sunken
eye,
As if the sounds to warrior dear
Might rouse her Duncan from his
bier.
But faded soon that borrowed force;
Grief claimed his right, and tears
their course.
XIX.
Benledi saw the Cross of Fire,
It glanced like lightning up
Strath-Ire.
O'er dale and hill the summons flew,
Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew;
The tear that gathered in his eye
He deft the mountain-breeze to dry;
Until, where Teith's young waters
roll
Betwixt him and a wooded knoll
That graced the sable strath with
green,
The chapel of Saint Bride was seen.
Swoln was the stream, remote the
bridge,
But Angus paused not on the edge;
Though the clerk waves danced
dizzily,
Though reeled his sympathetic eye,
He dashed amid the torrent's roar:
His right hand high the crosslet
bore,
His left the pole-axe grasped, to
guide
And stay his footing in the tide.
He stumbled twice,--the foam
splashed high,
With hoarser swell the stream raced
by;
And had he fallen,--forever there,
Farewell Duncraggan's orphan heir!
But still, as if in parting life,
Firmer he grasped the Cross of
strife,
Until the opposing bank he gained,
And up the chapel pathway strained.
A blithesome rout that morning-tide
Had sought the chapel of Saint
Bride.
Her troth Tombea's Mary gave
To Norman, heir of Armandave,
And, issuing from the Gothic arch,
The bridal now resumed their march.
In rude but glad procession came
Bonneted sire and coif-clad dame;
And plaided youth, with jest and
jeer
Which snooded maiden would not hear:
And children, that, unwitting why,
Lent the gay shout their shrilly
cry;
And minstrels, that in measures vied
Before the young and bonny bride,
Whose downcast eye and cheek
disclose
The tear and blush of morning rose.
With virgin step and bashful hand
She held the kerchief's snowy band.
The gallant bridegroom by her side
Beheld his prize with victor's
pride.
And the glad mother in her ear
Was closely whispering word of
cheer.
XXI.
Who meets them at the churchyard
gate?
The messenger of fear and fate!
Haste in his hurried accent lies,
And grief is swimming in his eyes.
All dripping from the recent flood,
Panting and travel-soiled he stood,
The fatal sign of fire and sword
Held forth, and spoke the appointed
word:
'The muster-place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal! Norman,
speed!'
And must he change so soon the hand
Just linked to his by holy band,
For the fell Cross of blood and
brand?
And must the day so blithe that
rose,
And promised rapture in the close,
Before its setting hour, divide
The bridegroom from the plighted
bride?
O fatal doom'--it must! it must!
Clan-Alpine's cause, her Chieftain's
trust,
Her summons dread, brook no delay;
Stretch to the race,--away! away!
XXII.
Yet slow he laid his plaid aside,
And lingering eyed his lovely bride,
Until he saw the starting tear
Speak woe he might not stop to
cheer:
Then, trusting not a second look,
In haste he sped hind up the brook,
Nor backward glanced till on the
heath
Where Lubnaig's lake supplies the
Teith,--
What in the racer's bosom stirred?
The sickening pang of hope deferred,
And memory with a torturing train
Of all his morning visions vain.
Mingled with love's impatience, came
The manly thirst for martial fame;
The stormy joy of mountaineers
Ere yet they rush upon the spears;
And zeal for Clan and Chieftain
burning,
And hope, from well-fought field
returning,
With war's red honors on his crest,
To clasp his Mary to his breast.
Stung by such thoughts, o'er bank
and brae,
Like fire from flint he glanced
away,
While high resolve and feeling
strong
Burst into voluntary song.
XXIII. Song.
The heath this night must be my bed,
The bracken curtain for my head,
My lullaby the warder's tread,
Far, far, from love and thee, Mary;
To-morrow eve, more stilly laid,
My couch may be my bloody plaid,
My vesper song thy wail, sweet maid!
It will not waken me, Mary!
I may not, dare not, fancy now
The grief that clouds thy lovely
brow,
I dare not think upon thy vow,
And all it promised me, Mary.
No fond regret must Norman know;
When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,
His heart must be like bended bow,
His foot like arrow free, Mary.
A time will come with feeling
fraught,
For, if I fall in battle fought,
Thy hapless lover's dying thought
Shall be a thought on thee, Mary.
And if returned from conquered foes,
How blithely will the evening close,
How sweet the linnet sing repose,
To my young bride and me, Mary!
XXIV.
Not faster o'er thy heathery braes
Balquidder, speeds the midnight
blaze,
Rushing in conflagration strong
Thy deep ravines and dells along,
Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow,
And reddening the dark lakes below;
Nor faster speeds it, nor so far,
As o'er thy heaths the voice of war.
The signal roused to martial coil
The sullen margin of Loch Voil,
Waked still Loch Doine, and to the
source
Alarmed, Balvaig, thy swampy course;
Thence southward turned its rapid
road
Adown Strath-Gartney's valley broad
Till rose in arms each man might
claim
A portion in Clan-Alpine's name,
From the gray sire, whose trembling
hand
Could hardly buckle on his brand,
To the raw boy, whose shaft and bow
Were yet scarce terror to the crow.
Each valley, each sequestered glen,
Mustered its little horde of men
That met as torrents from the height
In Highland dales their streams
unite
Still gathering, as they pour along,
A voice more loud, a tide more
strong,
Till at the rendezvous they stood
By hundreds prompt for blows and
blood,
Each trained to arms since life
began,
Owning no tie but to his clan,
No oath but by his chieftain's hand,
No law but Roderick Dhu's command.
XXV.
That summer morn had Roderick Dhu
Surveyed the skirts of Benvenue,
And sent his scouts o'er hill and
heath,
To view the frontiers of Menteith.
All backward came with news of
truce;
Still lay each martial Graeme and
Bruce,
In Rednock courts no horsemen wait,
No banner waved on Cardross gate,
On Duchray's towers no beacon shone,
Nor scared the herons from Loch Con;
All seemed at peace.--Now wot ye
wily
The Chieftain with such anxious eye,
Ere to the muster he repair,
This western frontier scanned with
care?--
In Benvenue's most darksome cleft,
A fair though cruel pledge was left;
For Douglas, to his promise true,
That morning from the isle withdrew,
And in a deep sequestered dell
Had sought a low and lonely cell.
By many a bard in Celtic tongue
Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sung
A softer name the Saxons gave,
And called the grot the Goblin Cave.
XXVI.
It was a wild and strange retreat,
As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet.
The dell, upon the mountain's crest,
Yawned like a gash on warrior's
breast;
Its trench had stayed full many a
rock,
Hurled by primeval earthquake shock
From Benvenue's gray summit wild,
And here, in random ruin piled,
They frowned incumbent o'er the spot
And formed the rugged sylvan
"rot.
The oak and birch with mingled shade
At noontide there a twilight made,
Unless when short and sudden shone
Some straggling beam on cliff or
stone,
With such a glimpse as prophet's eye
Gains on thy depth, Futurity.
No murmur waked the solemn still,
Save tinkling of a fountain rill;
But when the wind chafed with the
lake,
A sullen sound would upward break,
With dashing hollow voice, that
spoke
The incessant war of wave and rock.
Suspended cliffs with hideous sway
Seemed nodding o'er the cavern gray.
From such a den the wolf had sprung,
In such the wild-cat leaves her
young;
Yet Douglas and his daughter fair
Sought for a space their safety
there.
Gray Superstition's whisper dread
Debarred the spot to vulgar tread;
For there, she said, did fays
resort,
And satyrs hold their sylvan court,
By moonlight tread their mystic
maze,
And blast the rash beholder's gaze.
XXVII.
Now eve, with western shadows long,
Floated on Katrine bright and
strong,
When Roderick with a chosen few
Repassed the heights of Benvenue.
Above the Goblin Cave they go,
Through the wild pass of
Beal-nam-bo;
The prompt retainers speed before,
To launch the shallop from the
shore,
For 'cross Loch Katrine lies his way
To view the passes of Achray,
And place his clansmen in array.
Yet lags the Chief in musing mind,
Unwonted sight, his men behind.
A single page, to bear his sword,
Alone attended on his lord;
The rest their way through thickets
break,
And soon await him by the lake.
It was a fair and gallant sight
To view them from the neighboring
height,
By the low-levelled sunbeam's light!
For strength and stature, from the
clan
Each warrior was a chosen man,
As even afar might well be seen,
By their proud step and martial
mien.
heir feathers dance, their tartars
float,
Their targets gleam, as by the boat
A wild and warlike group they stand,
That well became such
mountain-strand.
XXVIII
Their Chief with step reluctant
still
Was lingering on the craggy hill,
Hard by where turned apart the road
To Douglas's obscure abode.
It was but with that dawning morn
That Roderick Dhu had proudly sworn
To drown his love in war's wild
roar,
Nor think of Ellen Douglas more;
But he who stems a stream with sand,
And fetters flame with flaxen band,
Has yet a harder task to prove,--
By firm resolve to conquer love!
Eve finds the Chief, like restless
ghost,
Still hovering near his treasure
lost;
For though his haughty heart deny
A parting meeting to his eye
Still fondly strains his anxious ear
The accents of her voice to hear,
And inly did he curse the breeze
That waked to sound the rustling
trees.
But hark! what mingles in the
strain?
It is the harp of Allan-bane,
That wakes its measure slow and
high,
Attuned to sacred minstrelsy.
What melting voice attends the
strings?
'Tis Ellen, or an angel, sings.
XXIX. Hymn to the Virgin.
Ave. Maria! maiden mild!
Listen to a maiden's prayer!
Thou canst hear though from the
wild,
Thou canst save amid despair.
Safe may we sleep beneath thy care,
Though banished, outcast, and reviled--
Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;
Mother, hear a suppliant child!
Ave Maria!
Ave Maria! undefiled!
The flinty couch we now
must share
Shall seem with down of eider piled,
If thy protection hover there.
The murky cavern's heavy air
Shall breathe of balm if thou hast smiled;
Then, Maiden! hear a maiden's
prayer,
Mother, list a suppliant child!
Ave
Maria!
Ave. Maria! stainless styled!
Foul demons of the earth and air,
From this their wonted haunt exiled,
Shall flee before thy presence fair.
We bow us to our lot of care,
Beneath thy guidance reconciled:
Hear for a maid a maiden's prayer,
And for a father hear a child!
Ave
Maria!
XXX.
Died on the harp the closing hymn,--
Unmoved in attitude and limb,
As listening still, Clan-Alpine's
lord
Stood leaning on his heavy sword,
Until the page with humble sign
Twice pointed to the sun's decline.
Then while his plaid he round him
cast,
'It is the last time--'tis the
last,'
He muttered thrice,--'the last time
e'er
That angel-voice shall Roderick hear
It was a goading thought,--his
stride
Hied hastier down the mountain-side;
Sullen he flung him in the boat
An instant 'cross the lake it shot.
They landed in that silvery bay,
And eastward held their hasty way
Till, with the latest beams of
light,
The band arrived on Lanrick height'
Where mustered in the vale below
Clan-Alpine's men in martial show.
XXXI.
A various scene the clansmen made:
Some sat, some stood, some slowly
strayer):
But most, with mantles folded round,
Were couched to rest upon the
ground,
Scarce to be known by curious eye
From the deep heather where they
lie,
So well was matched the tartan
screen
With heath-bell dark and brackens
green;
Unless where, here and there, a
blade
Or lance's point a glimmer made,
Like glow-worm twinkling through the
shade.
But when, advancing through the
gloom,
They saw the Chieftain's eagle
plume,
Their shout of welcome, shrill and
wide,
Shook the steep mountain's steady
side.
Thrice it arose, and lake and fell
Three times returned the martial
yell;
It died upon Bochastle's plain,
And Silence claimed her evening
reign.
