The rocks, the bosky thickets, sleep The lark's blithe carol from the cloud, Speed, Malise, speed! the lake is passed, Duncraggan's huts appear at last, And peep, like moss-grown rocks, half seen, There mayst thou rest, thy labour done, A gallant hunter's sport is o'er, And o'er him streams his widow's tear. His stripling son stands mournful by, 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 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. Betwixt him and a wooded knoll, His right hand high the crosslet bore, He stumbled twice the foam splashed high, And had he fallen,-for ever there, Farewell Duncraggan's orphan heir! Firmer he grasped the Cross of strife, And up the chapel pathway strained. * The Fiery Cross. That summer morn had Roderick Dhu And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath, All backward came with news of truce; 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, Had sought a low and lonely cell. It was a wild and strange retreat, The dell, upon the mountain's crest, 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; |