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 turn'd her eye to southern climes,
And thought perchance of happier times,
And touch'd her lute by fits, and sung

Wild dittics in her native tongue.

And still, when on the cliff and bay

Placid and pale the moonbeams play,

And every breeze is mute,

Upon the lone Hebridean's ear

Steals a strange pleasure mix'd 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 staid the song-

Yet who may pass them by,

That

crag and tower in ruins

grey,

Nor to their hapless tenant pay

The tribute of a sigh!

44

IX.

Merrily, merrily, bounds the bark
O'er the broad ocean driven,

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,
For hunting spear took warrior's brand.

On Scooreigg next a warning light
Summon'd 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 roll❜d,
The vapour fill'd the cavern'd 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.

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.

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 undisturb'd repose

The cormorant had found,

And the shy seal had quiet home,
And welter'd in that wond'rous dome,

Where, as to shame the temples deck'd
By skill of earthly architect,

Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise

A Minster to her Maker's praise!

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;