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 battlements' 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 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 Cumberland'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,
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 finished. Their thunders are hushed 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, banished, 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 fagots 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.
Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their
Like ocean-weeds heaped 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.
FROM THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET.
AMLET-Now, mother, what's the matter?
Queen-Hamlet, thou hast thy father much of
fended.
Hamlet-Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen-Come, come, you answer with an
Hamlet-Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen-Why, how now, Hamlet!
Hamlet-What's the matter now?
Queen-Have you forgot me ?
Hamlet-No, by the rood, not so.
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And-would it were not so!-you are my mother.
Queen-Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can
speak.
Hamlet-Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge:
not till I set you up a glass
you may see the inmost part of you. Queen-What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther me?
Polonius-[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help! Hamlet-[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a [Makes a pass through the arras.]
Polonius [Behind] O, I am slain! [Falls and dies.]
Queen-O me, what hast thou done?
Hamlet-Nay, I know not;
Is it the king?
Queen-O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Hamlet-A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
Queen-As kill a king!
Hamlet-Ay, lady, 't was my word.—
[Lifts up the arras and discovers Polonius.]
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better:
Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not braz'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
Queen-What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
Hamlet-Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths; O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow,
Yea, this sondity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
Queen-Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud and thunders in the index?
Hamlet-Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love, for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment
Would step from this to this?
O shame! where is thy blush?
Queen-O Hamlet, speak no more;
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
O, speak to me no more;
These words like daggers enter in mine ears:
No more, sweet Hamlet!
Hamlet-A murtherer and a villain;
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