He rode him down by Falsehope burn,
His cousin dear to see,
With him to take a riding turn-

Wat-draw-the-sword was he.

And when he came to Falsehope glen, Beneath the trysting-tree,

"Of all the knights, the knight most fair,

From Yarrow to the Tyne,' Soft sigh'd the maid, 'is Harden's heir, But ne'er can he be mine;

'Of all the maids, the foulest maid, From Teviot to the Dee,

'To Lochwood bound are we.'

'O if they be gane to dark Lochwood To drive the Warden's gear, Betwixt our names, I ween, there's feud ;

I'll go and have my share:

'For little reck I for Johnstone's feud,
The Warden though he be.'
So Lord William is away to dark
Lochwood,

With riders barely three.

The Warden's daughters in Lochwood sate,

Were all both fair and gay, All save the Lady Margaret, And she was wan and wae.

The sister, Jean, had a full fair skin, And Grace was bauld and braw; But the leal-fast heart her breast within It weel was worth them a'.

Her father's pranked her sisters twa
With meikle joy and pride;
But Margaret maun seek Dundrennan's
wa'-

She ne'er can be a bride.

On spear and casque by gallants gent

Her sisters' scarfs were borne, But never at tilt or tournament

Were Margaret's colours worn.

Her sisters rode to Thirlstane bower,
But she was left at hame
To wander round the gloomy tower,
And sigh young Harden's name.

'Can ne'er young Harden's be.'

She looked up the briery glen,
And up the mossy brae,

And she saw a score of her father's men
Yclad in the Johnstone grey.

O fast and fast they downwards sped
The moss and briers among,
And in the midst the troopers led
A shackled knight along.

WAR-SONG OF THE ROYAL EDINBURGH LIGHT DRAGOONS. (1802.)

To horse! to horse! the standard flies,
The bugles sound the call;
The Gallic navy stems the seas,
The voice of battle's on the breeze,
Arouse ye, one and all!

From high Dunedin's towers we come,
A band of brothers true;
Our casques the leopard's spoils sur-
round,

With Scotland's hardy thistle crown'd;
We boast the red and blue 1.

Though tamely crouch to Gallia's frown
Dull Holland's tardy train;
Their ravish'd toys though Romans

mourn;

Though gallant Switzers vainly spurn, And, foaming, gnaw the chain;

1 The royal colours.

call 1

Their brethren's murder gave, Disunion ne'er their ranks had mown, Nor patriot valour, desperate grown, Sought freedom in the grave!

Shall we, too, bend the stubborn head.

In Freedom's temple born, Dress our pale cheek in timid smile, To hail a master in our isle,

Or brook a victor's scorn?

No! though destruction o'er the land
Come pouring as a flood,
The sun, that sees our falling day,
Shall mark our sabres' deadly sway,
And set that night in blood.

For gold let Gallia's legions fight,
Or plunder's bloody gain;
Unbribed, unbought, our swords we
draw,

To guard our king, to fence our law,
Nor shall their edge be vain.

If ever breath of British gale
Shall fan the tri-color,
Or footstep of invader rude,
With rapine foul, and red with blood,

Pollute our happy shore,

Then farewell home! and farewell friends!

Adieu each tender tie! Resolved, we mingle in the tide, Where charging squadrons furious ride,

To conquer or to die.

The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss Guards, on the fatal 10th August, 1792. It is painful, but not useless, to remark, that the passive temper with which the Swiss regarded the death of their bravest country. men, mercilessly slaughtered in discharge of their duty, encouraged and authorized the progressive injustice, by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people upon the Continent, have, at length, been converted into the citadel of a foreign and military despot. A state degraded is half enslaved. [1812]

High sounds our bugle-call; Combined by honour's sacred tie, Our word is Laws and Liberty! March forward, one and all!

THE BARD'S INCANTATION.

(Written under threat of an invasion in the Autumn of 1804.)

THE forest of Glenmore is drear,

It is all of black pine and the dark oak-tree;

And the midnight wind to the mountain deer

Is whistling the forest lullaby : The moon looks through the drifting storm,

But the troubled lake reflects not her form,

For the waves roll whitening to the land,

And dash against the shelvy strand.

There is a voice among the trees,

That mingles with the groaning oak

That mingles with the stormy breeze, And the lake-waves dashing against

the rock;

There is a voice within the wood, The voice of the bard in fitful mood; His song was louder than the blast, As the bard of Glenmore through the forest past.

'Wake ye from your sleep of death,

Minstrels and bards of other days! For the midnight wind is on the heath,

And the midnight meteors dimly blaze:

The Spectre with his Bloody Hand Is wandering through the wild woodland;

The owl and the raven are mute for dread,

And the time is meet to awake the dead!

'Souls of the mighty, wake and say, To what high strain your harps

were strung,

When Lochlin plow'd her billowy way, And on your shores her Norsemen flung?

Her Norsemen train'd to spoil and blood,

Skill'd to prepare the Raven's food, All, by your harpings, doom'd to die On bloody Largs and Loncarty.

Mute are ye all? No murmurs strange Upon the midnight breeze sail by; Nor through the pines, with whistling change

Mimic the harp's wild harmony! Mute are ye now? Yene'er were mute, When Murder with his bloody foot, And Rapine with his iron hand, Were hovering near yon mountain strand.

'O yet awake the strain to tell, By every deed in song enroll'd, By every chief who fought or fell,

For Albion's weal in battle bold: From Coilgach1, first who roll'd his car Through the deep ranks of Roman war, To him, of veteran memory dear. Who victor died on Aboukir.

'By all their swords, by all their scars,

By all their names, a mighty spell! By all their wounds, by all their wars,

Arise, the mighty strain to tell! For fiercer than fierce Hengist's strain, More impious than the heathen Dane, More grasping than all-grasping Rome, Gaul's ravening legions hither come!'

1 The Galgacus of Tacitus.

The wind is hush'd, and still the lakeStrange murmurs fill my tinkling

ears,

Bristles my hair, my sinews quake, At the dread voice of other years: 'When targets clash'd, and bugles rung,

And blades round warriors heads were flung,

The foremost of the band were we, And hymn'd the joys of Liberty!'

HELLVELLYN. (1805.)

I CLIMB'D the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleam'd misty and wide; All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I mark'd the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather,

Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretch'd in decay, Like the corpse of an outcast abandon'd to weather,

Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay. Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,

For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,

The much-loved remains of her master

defended,

And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,

raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?

When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start? How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,

Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?

And, oh, was it meet, that-no requiem read o'er him

No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,

And thou, little guardian, alone stretch'd before himUnhonour'd the Pilgrim from life

should depart?

When a Prince to the fate of the

Peasant has yielded,

The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;

With scutcheons of silver the coffin

is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;

In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beaming,

Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,

Lamenting a Chief of the people should fall.

When mute in the woodlands thine echoes shall die :

No more by sweet Teivi Cadwallon shall rave,

And mix his wild notes with the wild dashing wave.

In spring and in autumn thy glories of shade

Unhonour'd shall flourish, unhonour'd shall fade;

For soon shall be lifeless the eye and the tongue,

That view'd them with rapture, with rapture that sung.

Thy sons, Dinas Emlinn, may march in their pride,

And chase the proud Saxon from Prestatyn's side;

But where is the harp shall give life to their name?

And where is the bard shall give heroes their fame?

nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,

When, wilder'd, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.

so fair,

Who heave the white bosom, and wave the dark hair; What tuneful enthusiast shall worship their eye,

When half of their charms with Cadwallon shall die?

And Rymny's wave with crimson

glows;

For Clare's red banner, floating wide, Roll'd down the stream to Severn's tide! And sooth they vow'd: the trampled green

Show'd where hot Neville's charge had been:

In every sable hoof-tramp stood
A Norman horseman's curdling blood!
Old Chepstow's brides may curse the
toil

That arm'd stout Clare for Cambrian broil;

Their orphans long the art may rue, For Neville's war-horse forged the shoe.

No more the stamp of armed steed Shall dint Glamorgan's velvet mead; Nor trace be there, in early spring, Save of the Fairies' emerald ring.

THE MAID OF TORO.
(1806.)

(An earlier version, of date 1800, appears in 'The House of Aspen.')

O, LOW shone the sun on the fair lake of Toro,

And weak were the whispers that waved the dark wood,

All as a fair maiden, bewilder'd in

sorrow,

Sorely sigh'd to the breezes, and wept to the flood.