"To chase the deer of yonder shades,

This morning left their father's pile The fairest of our mountain maids,

The daughters of the proud Glengyle.

"Long have I sought sweet Mary's heart,

And dropp'd the tear, and heaved the sigh: But vain the lover's wily art,

Beneath a sister's watchful eye.

"But thou may'st teach that guardian fair, While far with Mary I am flown,

Of other hearts to cease her care,

And find it hard to guard her own.

"Touch but thy harp, thou soon shalt see

The lovely Flora of Glengyle,

Unmindful of her charge and me,

Hang on thy notes, 'twixt tear and smile.

"Or, if she chuse a melting tale,

All underneath the greenwood bough,

Will good St, Oran's rule prevail,

Stern huntsman of the rigid brow?”.

"Since Enrick's fight, since Morna's death, No more on me shall rapture rise, Responsive to the panting breath,

Or yielding kiss, or melting eyes.

"E'en then, when o'er the heath of woe,
Where sunk my hopes of love and fame,

I bade my harp's wild wailings flow,
On me the seer's sad spirit came.

"The last dread curse of angry heaven,

With ghastly sights and sounds of woe, To dash each glimpse of joy, was given

The gift, the future ill to know.

VOL. III.

N

7

"The bark thou saw'st, yon summer morn,

So gaily part from Oban's bay,

'My eye beheld her dash'd and torn,

Far on the rocky Colonsay.

"The Fergus too-thy sister's son,

Thou saw'st, with pride, the gallant's power,

As marching 'gainst the Lord of Downe,
He left the skirts of huge Benmore.

"Thou only saw'st their tartans* wave,
As down Benvoirlich's side they wound,
Heard'st but the pibroch,† answering brave
To many a target clanking round.

Tartans-The full Highland dress, made of the chequered stuff so termed.

↑ Pibroch-A piece of martial music, adapted to the Highland bag-pipe.

"I heard the groans, I mark'd the tears,

I saw the wound his bosom bore, When on the serried Saxon spears

He pour'd his clan's resistless roar.

"And thou, who bid'st me think of bliss, And bid'st my heart awake to glee,

And court, like thee, the wanton kiss,—

That heart, O Ronald, bleeds for thee!

"I see the death-damps chill thy brow;

I hear thy Warning Spirit cry;

The corpse-lights dance-they're gone, and now...!

No more is given to gifted eye!"

"Alone enjoy thy dreary dreams,

Sad prophet of the evil hour!

Say, should we scorn joy's transient beams,

Because to-morrow's storm may lour?

"Or false, or sooth, thy words of woe,

Clangillian's Chieftain ne'er shall fear; His blood shall bound at rapture's glow, Though doom'd to stain the Saxon spear.

"E'en now to meet me in yon dell,

My Mary's buskins brush the dew."He spoke, nor bade the Chief farewell,

But call'd his dogs, and gay withdrew.

Within an hour return'd each hound;
In rush'd the rousers of the deer;

They howl'd in melancholy sound,
Then closely couch beside the Seer.

No Ronald yet; though midnight came, And sad were Moy's prophetic dreams, As, bending o'er the dying flame,

He fed the watch-fire's quivering gleams.