Lochiel's Warning.

Wizard. LOCHIEL! Lochiel! beware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, And the clans of Culloden are scatter'd in fight: They rally!-they bleed!—for their kingdom and crown; Wo, wo to the riders that trample them down! Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain, And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain. But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war, What steed to the desert flies frantic and far? 'Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await, Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate. A steed comes at morning: no rider is there; But its bridle is red with the sign of despair. Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led! Oh weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead: For a merciless sword o'er Culloden shall wave, Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.

Or,

Lochiel. Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,

Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight!

This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.

[seer!

Wizard. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?

Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn!

Say, rush'd the bold eagle exultingly forth,

From his home, in the dark-rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;
But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed-for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyry, that beacons the darkness of heaven.
Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlement's height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling, all lonely!-return!

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.

Lochiel. False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshall'd my clan: Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!

They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But wo to his kindred, and wo to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws;
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud;
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array-

Wizard. Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day!
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would reveal:
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring
With the blood-hounds that bark for thy fugitive king.
Lo! anointed by Heaven with vials of wrath,
Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!

Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight:
Rise! rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!
'Tis finish'd. Their thunders are hush'd on the moors;
Culloden is lost, and my country deplores:

But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where?
For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.

Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banish'd, forlorn,

Like a limb from his country, cast bleeding and torn?
Ah, no! for a darker departure is near;

The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier;
His death-bell is tolling; oh! mercy, dispel
Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters, convulsed, in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims.
Accursed be the faggots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat,
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale-

Lochiel. Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale: For never shall Albin a destiny meet,

So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat.

Though my perishing ranks should be strew'd in their gore Like ocean-weeds heap'd on the surf-beaten shore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,

While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,

Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!
And, leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.

Cadyow Castle.

WHEN princely Hamilton's abode
Ennobled Cadyow's Gothic towers,
The song went round, the goblet flow'd,
And revel sped the laughing hours.

But Cadyow's towers, in ruins laid,
And vaults, by ivy mantled o'er,
Thrill to the music of the shade,
Or echo Evan's hoarser roar.

Yet still, of Cadyow's faded fame,
You bid me tell a minstrel tale,
And tune my harp, of Border frame,
On the wild banks of Evandale.

Then, noble maid! at thy command,
Again the crumbled halls shall rise;
Lo! as on Evan's banks we stand,
The past returns-the present flies.
Where, with the rock's wood-cover'd side,
Were blended late the ruins green,
Rise turrets in fantastic pride,

And feudal banners flaunt between:

Where the rude torrent's brawling course
Was shagg'd with thorn and tangling sloe,
The ashlar buttress braves its force,
And ramparts frown in battled row.

Tis night-the shade of keep and spire
Obscurely dance on Evan's stream,
And on the wave the warder's fire

Is chequering the moon-light beam.

Fades slow their light; the east is grey;
The weary warder leaves his tower;
Steeds snort; uncoupled stag-hounds bay,
And merry hunters quit the bower.

Campbell

H

The drawbridge falls-they hurry out— Clatters each plank and swinging chain, As, dashing o'er, the jovial rout

Urge the shy steed, and slack the rein. First of his troop, the chief rode on;

His shouting merry-men throng behind;The steed of princely Hamilton

Was fleeter than the mountain-wind.

From the thick copse the roe-bucks bound,
The startling red-deer scuds the plain;
For the hoarse bugle's warrior-sound
Has roused their mountain-haunts again.
Through the huge oaks of Evandale,
Whose limbs a thousand years have worn,
What sullen roar comes down the gale,
And drowns the hunter's pealing horn?
Mightiest of all the beasts of chase,
That roam in woody Caledon,
Crashing the forest in his race,

The mountain Bull comes thundering on.

Fierce on the hunters' quiver'd band,
He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow;
Spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand;
And tosses high his mane of snow.
Aim'd well, the chieftain's lance has flown;
Struggling in blood the savage lies;
His roar is sunk in hollow groan-
Sound, merry huntsmen! sound the
'Tis noon-against the knotted oak
The hunter rests the idle spear;
Curls through the trees the slender smoke,
Where yeoman dight the woodland cheer.

pryse!

Proudly the chieftain mark'd his clan,
On greenwood lap all careless thrown;
Yet miss'd his eye the boldest man,
That bore the name of Hamilton.
Why fills not Bothwellhaugh his place,
Still wont our weal and wo to share?
Why comes not he our sport to grace?

Why shares he not our hunter's fare?"

Stern Claud replied, with darkening face,Grey Pasley's haughty lord was he→→→ "At merry feast, or buxom chase,

No more the warrior shalt thou see.

"Few suns have set, since Woodhouselee
Saw Bothwellhaugh's bright goblets foam,
When to his hearths, in social glee,

The war-worn soldier turn'd him home.
"There, wan from her maternal throes,
His Margaret, beautiful and mild,
Sat in her bower, a pallid rose,

And peaceful nursed her new-born child.
"O change accursed! past are those days:
False Murray's ruthless spoilers came;
And, for the hearth's domestic blaze,

Ascends destruction's volumed flame.

What sheeted phantom wanders wild,

Where mountain Eske through woodland flows, Her arms enfold a shadowy child—

Oh! is it she, the pallid rose?

The wilder'd traveller sees her glide,
And hears her feeble voice with awe-
'Revenge,' she cries, on Murray's pride!
And wo for injured Bothwellhaugh!'"
He ceased-and cries of rage and grief
Burst mingling from the kindred band;
And half arose the kindling chief,

And half unsheathed his Arran brand.
But who, o'er bush, o'er stream and rock,
Rides headlong, with resistless speed;
Whose bloody poniard's frantic stroke
Drives to the leap his jaded steed;
Whose cheek is pale, whose eyeballs glare,
As one, some visioned sight that saw;
Whose hands are bloody, loose his hair?
'Tis he! 'tis he! 'tis Bothwellhaugh.

From gory selle, and reeling steed,

Sprung the fierce horseman with a bound;

And, reeking from the recent deed,

He dash'd his carbine on the ground.

1