« The hand that mingled in the mcal, Meed for bis hospitality! Their red and fearful blazonry. yore. Ultonia's old heroes awoke at the call, burn? eye Had been but a star-glance that shot through the sky, And her voice that was moulded to melody's thrill, Lad been but a zepinyr that siglıd and was still! « Then woman's shriek was heard in vain, Nor infancy's unpitied plain, More than the warrior's groan, could gain Respite from rutlless butchery! The winter wind that whistled shirill, The snows that night that choked the hill, Though wild and pitiless, liad still Far more than southron clemency. Long have my harp's best notes been gone, Few are its strings, and faint their tone, They can but sound in desert Jone Their gray-baird master's misery. Were each gray hair a minstrel string, Each chord should imprecations fling, Till started Scotland loud should ring, “Revenge for blood and treachery!'» PROLOGUE Oh! would it had been so! Not then this poor heart ' In ancient Irish poetry, the standard of Fion, or Fingal, is called the Sun-burst, an epithet feebly rendered by the San-beum of Macpherson. TO MISS BAILLIE'S PLAY OF THE FAMILY LEGEND. your train, "T is sweet to hear expiring summer's sigh, Through forests tinged with russel, wail and die; 'Tis sweet and sad the latest notes to lear Of distant music, dying on the ear; But far more sadly sweet, on foreign strand, In danger undaunted, unwearied by toil, Though the whirlwind should rise, and the ocean should boil: Memorials dear of youth and infancy. On the brave vessel's gunnel I drank his bonnail,' And farewell to Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail. Like the sighs of his people, breathe soft on his sail ; 3c prolong'd as regret that his vassals must know, Ile hears with throbbing heart and moisten'd eyes, Be fair as their faith, and sincere as their woe: And as he hears, what dear illusions rise! Be so soft, and so fair, and so faithful, sweet gale, Wafting onward Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail ! To measure the seas and to study the skies: But 0! crowd it higher when wafting him back- IMITATION OF THE PRECEDING SONG. Are such keen feelings to the crowd confined, So sung the old Bard, in the grief of his heart, From the far southland border a minstrel came forth, FAREWELL TO MACKENZIE, HIGH CHIEF OF KINTAIL. And shalt thou then sleep, did the minstrel exclaim, thou hast loved o'er thy coffin shall flow, FROM THE GAELIC. The original verses are arranged to a beautiful Gaelic In vain, the bright course of thy talents to wrong, air, of which the chorus is adapted to the double pull Fate deaden'd thine ear and imprison'd thy tongue; upon the oars of a galley, and which is therefore dis- For brighter o'er all her obstructions arose tinct from the ordinary jorrams, or boat-songs. They The glow of the genius they could not oppose ; were composed by the family bard upon the departure And who in the land of the Saxon or Gael, of the Earl of Seaforth, who was obliged to take refuge Might match with Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail ? in Spain, after an unsuccessful effort at insurrection in favour of the Stuart family, in the year 1718. Thy sons rose around thee in light and in love, All a father could hope, all a friend could approve; FAREWELL to Mackenneth, great Earl of the North, What 'vails it the tale of thy sorrows to tell, — The Lord of Lochcarron, Glensheil, and Seaforth; In the spring-time of youth and of promise they fell! To the chieftain this morning his course who began, Of the line of Fitzgerald remains not a male, To bear the proud name of the Chief of Kintail. And thou, gentle dame, who must bear to thy grief, For thy clan and thy country, the cares of a chief, May her captain be skilful, her mariners true, Bonail', or Bonallez, the old Scottish phrase for a feast al Acadia, or Nova Scotia. parting with a friend. |