Nor scare they at the gathering crowd, Who marvel as they go.

To Learmont's tower a message sped,

As fast as page might run;
And Thomas started from his bed,
And soon his clothes did on.

First he woxe pale, and then woxe red; Never a word he spake but three; 'My sand is run; my thread is spun; This sign regardeth me.'

The elfin harp his neck around,
In minstrel guise, he hung;

And on the wind, in doleful sound,

Its dying accents rung.

Then forth he went; yet turned him oft

To view his ancient hall:

On the grey tower, in lustre soft,

The autumn moonbeams fall;

And Leader's waves, like silver sheen, Danced shimmering in the ray;

In deepening mass, at distance seen,

Broad Soltra's mountains lay.

'Farewell, my father's ancient tower! A long farewell,' said he:

'The scene of pleasure, pomp, or power,

Thou never more shalt be.

'To Learmont's name no foot of earth Shall here again belong,

And, on thy hospitable hearth,

The hare shall leave her young.

'Adieu! adieu!' again he cried,

All as he turned him roun' 'Farewell to Leader's silver tide!

Farewell to Ercildoune!'

The hart and hind approached the place,
As lingering yet he stood;

And there, before Lord Douglas' face,
With them he crossed the flood.

Lord Douglas leaped on his berry-brown steed, And spurred him the Leader o'er;

But, though he rode with lightning speed,

He never saw them more.

Some said to hill, and some to glen,

Their wondrous course had been;

But ne'er in haunts of living men

Again was Thomas seen.

THE BARD'S INCANTATION

WRITTEN UNDER THE THREAT OF INVASION IN THE AUTUMN OF 1804

THE forest of Glenmore is drear,

It is all of black pine and the dark oak-tree;
And the midnight wind to the mountain deer
Is whistling the forest lullaby:

The moon looks through the drifting storm,
But the troubled lake reflects not her form,
For the waves roll whitening to the land,
And dash against the shelvy strand.

There is a voice among the trees

That mingles with the groaning oak

That mingles with the stormy breeze,

And the lake-waves dashing against the rock;

There is a voice within the wood,

The voice of the bard in fitful mood;

His song was louder than the blast,

As the bard of Glenmore through the forest past.

'Wake ye from your sleep of death,
Minstrels and bards of other days!

For midnight wind is on the heath,
And the midnight meteors dimly blaze:

The Spectre with his Bloody Hand1
Is wandering through the wild woodland;
The owl and the raven are mute for dread,
And the time is meet to awake the dead!

'Souls of the mighty, wake and say

To what high strain your harps were strung,
When Lochlin ploughed her billowy way

And on your shores her Norsemen flung?
Her Norsemen trained to spoil and blood,
Skilled to prepare the raven's food,
All by your harpings doomed to die
On bloody Largs and Loncarty.2

'Mute are ye all? No murmurs strange
Upon the midnight breeze sail by,
Nor through the pines with whistling change
Mimic the harp's wild harmony!

Mute are ye now? Ye ne'er were mute

When Murder with his bloody foot,

And Rapine with his iron hand,

Were hovering near yon mountain strand.

'O, yet awake the strain to tell,

By every deed in song enrolled,

1 The forest of Glenmore is haunted by a spirit called Shamdearg, or Red Hand.

Where the Norwegian invader of Scotland received two bloody defeats.

By every chief who fought or fell,

For Albion's weal in battle bold:
From Coilgach,1 first who rolled his car
Through the deep ranks of Roman war,
To him of veteran memory dear
Who victor died on Aboukir.

'By all their swords, by all their scars,
By all their names, a mighty spell!
By all their wounds, by all their wars,
Arise, the mighty strain to tell!
For fiercer than fierce Hengist's strain,
More impious than the heathen Dane,
More grasping than all-grasping Rome,
Gaul's ravening legions hither come!'

The wind is hushed and still the lake
Strange murmurs fill my tinkling ears,
Bristles my hair, my sinews quake,

At the dread voice of other years'When targets clashed and bugles rung, And blades round warriors' heads were flung,

The foremost of the band were we

And hymned the joys of Liberty!'

1 The Galgacus of Tacitus.