Volume Iii Part 7 (2/2)

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, And a wild mother scream o'er her famis.h.i.+ng brood.

LOCHIEL.

False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshaled 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 c.u.mberland's steed to the shock!

Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!

But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, When Albin her claymore indignantly draws; When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd, Clanronald 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 G.o.d 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 bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king.

Lo! anointed by Heaven with the 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 finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors: Culloden is lost, and my country deplores.

But where is the ironbound prisoner? Where?

For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.

Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banished, forlorn, Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn?

Ah no! for a darker departure is near; The war drum is m.u.f.fled, 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 f.a.gots, 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 dishonor, so foul with retreat.

Tho' my peris.h.i.+ng ranks should be strewed in their gore, Like ocean weeds heaped on the surf-beaten sh.o.r.e, 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 deathbed of fame.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _”Announced by all the trumpets of the sky”_]

THE SNOWSTORM.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.

The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

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