'Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave, That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust, From company of holy dust;1 On which no sunbeam ever shines (So superstition's creed divines) Thence view the lake, with sullen roar, Heave her broad billows to the shore; Spread wide through midst their snowy sail, 1 At one corner of the burial ground of the demolished chapel, but without its precincts, is a small mound, called Binram's Corse, where tradition deposits the remains of a necromantic priest, the former tenant of the chaplainry. His story much resembles that of Ambrosio in "The Monk," and has been made the theme of a ballad, by my friend Mr. James Hogg, more poetically designed the Ettrick Shepherd. To his volume, entitled "The Mountain Bard," which contains this, and many other legendary stories and ballads of great merit, I refer the curious reader. N And ever stoop again, to lave Their bosoms on the surging wave; And thought the Wizard Priest was come, To frame him fitting shape and strange, But chief, 't were sweet to think such life, (Though but escape from fortune's strife,) Something most matchless good and wise, A great and grateful sacrifice; And deem each hour to musing given, A step upon the road to heaven. Yet him, whose heart is ill at ease, And my black Palmer's choice had been Some ruder and more savage scene, Like that which frowns round dark Loch Skene.1 There eagles scream from isle to shore; Where, deep deep down, and far within, And wheeling round the Giant's Grave, Loch Skene is a mountain lake, of considerable size, at the head of the Moffat-water. The character of the scenery is uncommonly savage; and the earn, or Scottish eagle, has, for many ages, built its nest yearly upon an islet in the lake. Loch Skene discharges itself into a brook, which, after a short and precipitate course, falls from a cataract of immense height, and gloomy grandeur, called, from its appearance, the "Grey Mare's Tail." The Giant's Grave," afterwards mentioned, is a sort of trench, which bears that name, a little way from the foot of the cataract. It has the appearance of a battery, designed to command the pass. |