The Voyage.

Merrily, merrily, bounds the bark,

She bounds before the gale,

The mountain breeze from Ben-na-darch

Is joyous in her sail!

With fluttering sound like laughter hoarse
The cords and canvas strain,

The waves, divided by her force,

In rippling eddies chased her course,
As if they laughed again.

Not down the breeze more blithely flew,
Skimming the wave, the light sea-mew,

Than that gay galley bore

Her course upon that favouring wind,
And Coolin's crest has sunk behind,

And Slapin's caverned shore.

'Twas then that warlike signals wake Dunscaith's dark towers and Eisord's lake,

And soon from Cavilgarrigh's head

Thick wreaths of eddying smoke were spread;

A summons these of war and wrath

To the brave clans of Sleate and Strath,

And, ready at the sight,

Each warrior to his weapons sprung,

And targe upon his shoulder flung,
Impatient for the fight.

Mac-Kinnon's Chief, in warfare gray,
Had charge to muster their array,

And guide their barks to Brodick-Bay.

Signal of Ronald's high command,

A beacon gleamed o'er sea and land,
From Canna's tower, that, steep and gray,
Like falcon nest o'erhangs the bay.
Seek not the giddy crag to climb,
To view the turret scathed by time;
It is a task of doubt and fear
To aught but goat or mountain-deer.

But rest thee on the silver beach,
And let the aged herdsman teach

His tale of former day;

His cur's wild clamour he shall chide,
And for thy seat by ocean's side
His varied plaid display;

Then tell, with Canna's Chieftain came,

In ancient times, a foreign dame

To yonder turret gray.

Stern was her Lord's suspicious mind,
Who in so rude a jail confined

So soft and fair a thrall!

And oft, when moon on ocean slept,
That lovely lady sate and wept

Upon the Castle wall,

And turned her eye to southern climes, And thought perchance of happier times, And touched her lute by fits, and sung Wild ditties in her native tongue. And still, when on the cliff and bay,

The Voyage.

Placid and pale the moonbeams play,

And every breeze is mute,

Upon the lone Hebridean's ear

Steals a strange pleasure mixed with fear,

While from that cliff he seems to hear

The murmur of a lute,

And sounds, as of a captive lone,

That mourns her woes in tongue unknown.—

Strange is the tale-but all too long

Already hath it stayed the song—

Yet who may pass them by, That crag and tower in ruins gray, Nor to their hapless tenant pay The tribute of a sigh!

Merrily, merrily bounds the bark
O'er the broad ocean driven,
Her path by Ronin's mountains dark
The steersman's hand has given.
And Ronin's mountains dark have sent
Their hunters to the shore,

And each his ashen bow unbent,

And gave his pastime o'er,
And at the Island Lord's command,
For hunting-spear took warrior's brand.
On Scoor-Eigg next a warning light
Summoned her warriors to the fight;

A numerous race, ere stern Macleod

O'er their bleak shores in vengeance strode,

When all in vain the ocean cave

Its refuge to his victims gave.

The Chief, relentless in his wrath,

With blazing heath blockades the path;

In dense and stifling volumes rolled,

The vapour filled the caverned Hold!
The warrior-threat, the infant's plain,
The mother's screams, were heard in vain;
The vengeful Chief maintains his fires,

Till in the vault a tribe expires!

The bones which strew that cavern's gloom, Too well attest their dismal doom.

Merrily, merrily goes the bark

On a breeze from the northward free, So shoots through the morning sky the lark, Or the swan through the summer sea. The shores of Mull on the eastward lay,

And Ulva dark and Colonsay,

And all the group of islets gay

That guard famed Staffa round. Then all unknown its columns rose, Where dark and undisturbed repose The cormorant had found.