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The rocks, the bosky thickets, sleep
So stilly on thy bosom deep,

The lark's blithe carol from the cloud,
Seems for the scene too gaily loud.

Speed, Malise, speed! the lake is passed, Duncraggan's huts appear at last,

And peep, like moss-grown rocks, half seen,
Half hidden in the copse so green;

There mayst thou rest, thy labour done,
Their lord shall speed the signal on.—
As stoops the hawk upon his prey,
The henchman shot him down the way.
What woeful accents load the gale!
The funeral yell, the female wail!

A gallant hunter's sport is o'er,
A valiant warrior fights no more.
Who, in the battle or the chase,
At Roderick's side shall fill his place?-
Within the hall, where torches' ray
Supplies the excluded beams of day,
Lies Duncan on his lowly bier,

And o'er him streams his widow's tear.

His stripling son stands mournful by,
His youngest weeps, but knows not why;

The village maids and matrons round

The dismal coronach resound.

The Fiery Cross.

*

CORONACH.

He is gone on the mountain,

He is lost to the forest,

Like a summer-dried fountain,

When our need was the sorest.

The font, reappearing,

From the rain-drops shall borrow,

But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow!

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,

But the voice of the weeper

Wails manhood in glory;

The autumn winds rushing

Waft the leaves that are searest,

But our flower was in flushing,

When blighting was nearest.

Fleet foot on the correi,

Sage counsel in cumber,

Red hand in the foray,

How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,

Like the foam on the river,

Like the bubble on the fountain,

Thou art gone, and for ever!

*

Ben Ledi saw the Cross of Fire,

It glanced like lightning up Strath Ire.
O'er dale and hill the summons flew,
Not rest nor pause young Angus knew;
The tear that gathered in his eye,
He left the mountain-breeze to dry;
Until, where Teith's young waters roll,

Betwixt him and a wooded knoll,
That graced the sable strath with green,
The chapel of Saint Bride was seen.
Swollen was the stream, remote the bridge,
But Angus paused not on the edge;
Though the dark waves danced dizzily,
Though reeled his sympathetic eye,
He dashed amid the torrent's roar:

His right hand high the crosslet bore,
His left the pole-axe grasped, to guide
And stay his footing in the tide.

He stumbled twice the foam splashed high,
With hoarser swell the stream raced by;

And had he fallen,-for ever there,

Farewell Duncraggan's orphan heir!
But still, as if in parting life,

Firmer he grasped the Cross of strife,
Until the opposing bank he gained,

And up the chapel pathway strained.

*

The Fiery Cross.

That summer morn had Roderick Dhu
Surveyed the skirts of Ben Venue,

And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath,
To view the frontiers of Menteith.

All backward came with news of truce;
Still lay each martial Græme and Bruce,
In Rednock courts no horsemen wait,
No banner waved on Cardross gate,
On Duchray's towers no beacon shone,
Nor scared the herons from Loch Con;
All seemed at peace.-Now, wot ye why
The Chieftain, with such anxious eye,
Ere to the muster he repair,

This western frontier scanned with care?--

In Ben Venue's most darksome cleft,

A fair, though cruel pledge was left;

For Douglas, to his promise true,
That morning from the isle withdrew,
And in a deep sequestered dell

Had sought a low and lonely cell.
By many a bard, in Celtic tongue,
Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sung;
A softer name the Saxon gave,
And called the grot the Goblin-cave.

It was a wild and strange retreat,
As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet.

The dell, upon the mountain's crest,
Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast;
Its trench had stayed full many a rock,
Hurled by primeval earthquake shock
From Ben Venue's grey summit wild,
And here, in random ruin piled,
They frowned incumbent o'er the spot,
And formed the rugged sylvan grot.
The oak and birch, with mingled shade,
At noontide there a twilight made,
Unless when short and sudden shone
Some straggling beam on cliff or stone,
With such a glimpse as prophet's eye
Gains on thy depth, Futurity.

No murmur waked the solemn still,

Save tinkling of a fountain rill;

But when the wind chafed with the lake,

A sullen sound would upward break, With dashing hollow voice, that spoke The incessant war of wave and rock. Suspended cliffs, with hideous sway, Seemed nodding o'er the cavern grey. From such a den the wolf had sprung, In such the wild cat leaves her young; Yet Douglas and his daughter fair Sought, for a space, their safety there. Grey Superstition's whisper dread Debarred the spot to vulgar tread;

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