Strange is the tale-but all too long Already hath it staid the song That crag and tower in ruins grey, Nor to their hapless tenant pay The tribute of a sigh! IX. Merrily, merrily, bounds the bark Her path by Ronin's mountains dark The steersman's hand hath 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, A numerous race, ere stern Macleod O'er their bleak shores in vengeance strode, When all in vain the ocean cave Its refuge to its victims gave. The Chief, relentless in his wrath, With blazing heath blockades the path; In dense and stifling volumes roll'd, The vapour fill❜d the cavern'd Hold! The warrior-threat, the infant's plain, The vengeful Chief maintains his fires, The bones which strew that cavern's gloom, Too well attest their dismal doom. X. 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. 8 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. Where dark and undisturb'd repose And the shy seal had quiet home, Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise Not for a meaner use ascend Her columns, or her arches bend; Nor of a theme less solemn tells That mighty surge that ebbs and swells, And still, between each awful pause, From the high vault an answer draws, In varied tone prolong'd and high, That mocks the organ's melody. Nor doth its entrance front in vain To old Iona's holy fane, That Nature's voice might seem to say, "Well hast thou done, frail Child of clay ! Thy humble powers that stately shrine Task'd high and hard-but witness mine !”— XI. Merrily, merrily, goes the bark, Before the gale she bounds; So darts the dolphin from the shark, Or the deer before the hounds. They left Loch-Tua on their lee, And they waken'd the men of the wild Tiree, And the Chief of the sandy Coll; They paused not at Columba's isle, Though peal'd the bells from the holy pile With long and measured toll; No time for matin or for mass, And the sounds of the holy summons pass Away in the billows' roll. Lochbuie's fierce and warlike Lord Their signal saw, and grasp'd his sword, And verdant Ilay call'd her host, And the clans of Jura's rugged coast Lord Ronald's call obey, And Scarba's isle, whose tortured shore Still rings to Corrievreken's roar, And lonely Colonsay; -Scenes sung by him who sings no more! His bright and brief career is o'er, And mute his tuneful strains ; Quench'd is his lamp of varied lore, A distant and a deadly shore Has LEYDEN's cold remains! |