To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir
As life were in 't. I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me. Wherefore was that cry?
SEY. The Queen, my lord, is dead.
MACB. She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly. MESS. Gracious my lord, should report that which I saw, but know not how to do it.
MACB. Well, say, sir. MESS. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
MESS. Let me endure your wrath, if 't be not so; Within this three mile may you see it coming.
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee; if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.-
I pull in resolution; and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the Fiend,
That lies like truth: Fear not, till Birnam-wood
Do come to Dunsinane; and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!-
If this, which he avouches, does appear,
There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here.
I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone. —
Ring the alarum-bell; blow, wind! come wrack!
At least we 'll die with harness on our back.
Dunstaffnage Castle.
DUNSTAFFNAGE CASTLE.
ROKEN Dunstaffinage by the western sea,
Thou art as dark as any old misdeed
Committed in thy lonely towers could be!
Thou 'rt like a life too gloomy to succeed,
That preys upon itself and dies of need.
Yet thou wert born in History's early dawn,
Of warlike race and brood, a stately thing
Created strong and fearless to adorn
The vales that wooed thee for thy sheltering.
To-day what valley of them all takes heed
Of thee? They smile and dance beneath the corn
E'en the great ocean flaunts thee with its scorn!
Now hath a new-born babe more power than thou,
For it hath life, thine perished long ago.
And yet, Dunstaffuage, I should do thee wrong,
Thou, who hast held great Scotland in amaze,
To image piteous these later days
And leave thy glorious memories unsung!
Within thee when the Christian, world was young,
Twelve centuries ago, fame's minstrels sang,
Whispered thy name and victory's bugles rang!
Great kings anointed here with blast of song,
With trumpets blowing and with clash of spears
Knelt to the patriarch of their royal years,
The holy stone,' that Scone deprived thee of
When first men ceased to fear thee and to love!
Thou great Dunstaffnage, though we cannot save
Thy life, we may at least revere thy grave!
Earlsburn, the River.
SWEET EARLSBURN, BLITHE EARLSBURN.
WEET Earlsburn, blithe Earlsburn,
Mine own, my native stream,
My heart grows young again, while thus
1 Coronation-stone of the Kings of Scotland, taken from Iona to Dunstaffnage, thence to Scone, and last to Westminster Abbey, where it has been for six hundred years.
On thy green banks I dream.
Yes, dream! in sooth I can no more,
For as thy murmurs roll,
They wake the ancient melodies
That stirred my infant soul.
I've told thee, one by one, the thoughts;
Strange shapeless forms were they,
That hung around me fearfully
In childhood's dreamy day;
And still thy mystic music spake
Dimly articulate,
Yielding meet answer to the dreams
That shadowed forth my fate.
I've wept by thee a sorrowing child;
I've sported, mad with glee,
And still thou wert the only one
That seemed to care for me;
For in whatever mood I came
To wander by thy brim,
Thy murmurs were most musical,
Soul-soothing as a hymn.
I've wandered far in other lands,
And mixed with stranger men,
But still my heart untravelled sought
Repose within thy glen.
The pictures of my memory
Were fresh as they were limned,
Nor change of scene nor lapse of years
Their lustre ever dimmed.
Earn, the River.
TO THE RIVER EARN.
HOU, mountain stream, whose early torrent course
Tuh many a drear and distant region seen,
Windest thy downward way with slackened force,
As with the journey thou hadst wearied been;
And, all enamored of these margins green,
Delight'st to wander with a sportive tide;
Seeming with refluent current still to glide
Around the hazel banks that o'er thee lean.
Like thee, wild stream! my wearied soul would roam
(Forgetful of life's dark and troublous hour),
Through scenes where Fancy frames her fairy bower,
And Love, enchanted, builds his cottage-home:
But time and tide wait not, and I, like thee,
Must go where tempests rage, and wrecks bestrew the
Edinburgh.
ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH.
Scotia's darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and towers,
Where once beneath a monarch's feet
Sat Legislation's sovereign powers!
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