The summer sun, the spring's sweet dew,

That clothe with many a varied hue
The bleakest mountain-side.

And wilder, forward as they wound,
Were the proud cliffs and lake profound.
Huge terraces of granite black

Afforded rude and cumbered track;

For from the mountain hoar,
Hurled headlong in some night of fear,
When yelled the wolf and fled the deer,
Loose crags had toppled o'er;

And some, chance-poised and balanced, lay,
So that a stripling arm might sway
A mass no host could raise,
In Nature's rage at random thrown,
Yet trembling like the Druid's stone.

On its precarious base.

The evening mists, with ceaseless change,
Now clothed the mountains' lofty range,

Now left their foreheads bare,

And round the skirts their mantle furled,

Or on the sable waters curled,

Or, on the eddying breezes whirled,

Dispersed in middle air.

And oft, condensed, at once they lower,

When, brief and fierce, the mountain shower

Pours like a torrent down,

Skye.

And when return the sun's glad beams,
Whitened with foam a thousand streams
Leap from the mountain's crown.

This lake," said Bruce, "whose barriers drear

Are precipices sharp and sheer,

Yielding no track for goat or deer,

Save the black shelves we tread,

How term you its dark waves? and how Yon northern mountain's pathless brow, And yonder peak of dread,

That to the evening sun uplifts

The griesly gulfs and slaty rifts,

Which seam its shivered head?' Coriskin call the dark lake's name, Coolin the ridge, as bards proclaim, From old Cuchullin, chief of fame. But bards, familiar in our isles

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Rather with Nature's frowns than smiles,
Full oft their careless humours please
By sportive names for scenes like these.
I would old Torquil were to show
His Maidens with their breasts of snow,
Or that my noble Liege were nigh
To hear his Nurse sing lullaby!

(The Maids-tall cliffs with breakers white, The Nurse-a torrent's roaring might);

Or that your eye could see the mood

Of Corrievreken's whirlpool rude,

When dons the Hag her whitened hood

'Tis thus our islesmen's fancy frames,

For scenes so stern, fantastic names.'

Answered the Bruce, “And musing mind Might here a graver moral find.

Skye.

These mighty cliffs, that heave on high

Their naked brows to middle sky,

Indifferent to the sun or snow,

Where nought can fade, and nought can blow,
May they not mark a Monarch's fate,-
Raised high 'mid storms of strife and state,

Beyond life's lowlier pleasures placed,
His soul a rock, his heart a waste?

The Voyage.

CORISKIN dark and Coolin high
Echoed the dirge's doleful cry;
Along that sable lake passed slow,-
Fit scene for such a sight of woe,-
The sorrowing islesmen, as they bore
The murdered Allan to the shore.
At every pause, with dismal shout,
Their coronach of grief rung out,
And ever, when they moved again,
The pipes resumed their clamorous strain,
And, with the pibroch's shrilling wail,
Mourned the young heir of Donagaile.

Round and around, from cliff and cave,
His answer stern old Coolin gave,
Till high upon his misty side.

Languished the mournful notes, and died.
For never sounds, by mortal made,
Attained his high and haggard head,
That echoes but the tempest's moan,
Or the deep thunder's rending groan.