The shrinking band stood oft aghast
At the impatient glance he cast;-
Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As, from the cliffs of Ben-venue,
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And, high in middle heaven reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
Silenced the warblers of the brake.

IV.

A heap of withered boughs was piled,
Of juniper and rowan wild,
Mingled with shivers from the oak,
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.
Brian, the hermit, by it stood,
Barefooted, in his frock and hood.
His grisled beard and matted hair
Obscured a visage of despair;

His naked arms and legs, seamed o'er,
The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and face,2
The impending danger of his race
Had drawn from deepest solitude,
Far in Benharrow's bosom rude.
Not his the mien of Christain priest,
But Druid's, from the grave released,
Whose hardened heart and eye might brook
On human sacrifice to look;

And much, 'twas said, of heathen lore
Mixed in the charms he muttered o'er.
The hallowed creed gave only worse
And deadlier emphasis of curse;
No peasant sought that hermit's prayer,
His cave the pilgrim shunned with care;
The eager huntsman knew his bound,
And in mid chase called off his hound;
Or if, in lonely glen or strath,
The desert-dweller met his path,
He prayed, and signed the cross between,
While terror took devotion's mien.

V.

Of Brian's birth strange tales were told;3 His mother watched a midnight fold, Built deep within a dreary glen, Where scattered lay the bones of men, In some forgotten battle slain, And bleached by drifting wind and rain. It might have tamed a warrior's heart, To view such mockery of his art! The knot-grass fettered there the hand, Which once could burst an iron band; Beneath the broad and ample bone, That bucklered heart to fear unknown, A feeble and a timorous guest, The field-fare framed her lowly nest; There the slow blind-worm left his slime On the fleet limbs that mocked at time; And there, too, lay the leader's skull, Still wreathed with chaplet, flushed and full, For heath-bell, with her purple bloom, Supplied the bonnet and the plume. All night, in this sad glen, the maid Sate, shrouded in her mantle's shade: She said, no shepherd sought her side, No hunter's hand her snood untied, Yet ne'er again to braid her hair The virgin snood did Alice wear;4 Gone was her maiden glee and sport, Her maiden girdle all too short, Nor sought she, from that fatal night, Or holy church, or blessed rite,

But locked her secret in her breast,
And died in travail, unconfessed.

VI.
Alone, among his young compeers,
Was Brian from his infant years;
A moody and heart-broken boy,
Estranged from sympathy and joy,
Bearing each taunt which careless tongue
On his mysterious lineage flung.
Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale,
To wood and stream his hap to wail,
Till, frantic, he as truth received
What of his birth the crowd believed,
And sought, in mist and meteor fire,
To meet and know his phantom sire!
In vain, to sooth his way ward fate,
The cloister oped her pitying gate;
In vain, the learning of the age
Unclasped the sable-lettered page;
E'en in its treasures he could find
Food for the fever of his mind.
Eager he read whatever tells
Of magic, cabala, and spells,
And every dark pursuit allied
To curious and presumptuous pride;
Till, with fired brain and nerves o'erstrung,
And heart with mystic horrors wrung,
Desperate he sought Benharrow's den,
And hid him from the haunts of men.
VII.

The desert gave him visions wild,
Such as might suit the spectre's child.
Where with black cliff's the torrents toil,
He watched the wheeling eddies boil,
Till, from their foam, his dazzled eyes
Beheld the river demon rise;

The mountain-mist took form and limb,
Of noontide hag, or goblin grim;
The midnight wind came wild and dread,
Swelled with the voices of the dead;
Far on the future battle-heath
His eye beheld the ranks of death:
Thus the lone seer, from mankind hurled,
Shaped forth a disembodied world.
One lingering sympathy of mind
Still bound him to the mortal kind;
The only parent he could claim
Of ancient Alpine's lineage came.
Late had he heard in prophet's dream,
The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream;6
Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast,
Of charging steeds, careering fast
Along Benharrow's shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride:"
The thunder-bolt had split the pine,-

All augured ill to Alpine's line.

He girt his loins, and came to show
The signals of impending wo,

And now stood prompt to bless or ban,
As bade the chieftain of his clan.

VIII.

'Twas all prepared; and from the rock,
A goat, the patriarch of the flock,
Before the kindling pile was laid,
And pierced by Roderick's ready blade.
Patient the sickening victim eyed
The life-blood ebb in crimson tide,
Down his clogged beard and shaggy limb,
Till darkness glazed his eye-balls dim.
The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,
A slender crosslet, formed with care,

A cubit's length in measure due;
The shafts and limbs were rods of yew,
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave
Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave,8
And, answering Lomond's breezes deep,
Sooth many a chieftain's endless sleep.
The cross, thus formed, he held on high,
With wasted hand, and haggard eye,
And strange and mingled feelings woke,
While his anathema he spoke:
IX.

"Wo to the clansman, who shall view
This symbol of sepulchral yew,
Forgetful that its branches grew

Where weep the heavens their holiest dew
On Alpine's dwelling low!
Deserter of his chieftain's trust,
He ne'er shall mingle with their dust,
But, from his sires and kindred thrust,
Each clansman's execration just

Shall doom him wrath and wo."
He paused;-the word the vassals took,
With forward step and fiery look,
On high their naked brands they shook,
Their clattering targets wildly strook;
And first, in murmur low,
Then, like the billow in his course,
That far to seaward finds his source,
And flings to shore his mustered force,
Burst, with loud roar, their answer hoarse,
"Wo to the traitor, wo!"
Ben-an's gray scalp the accents knew,
The joyous wolf from covert drew,
The exulting eagle screamed afar,-
They knew the voice of Alpine's war.

X.

The shout was hushed on lake and fell,
The monk resumed his muttered spell.
Dismal and low its accents came,
The while he scathed the cross with flame;
And the few words that reached the air,
Although the holiest name was there,
Had more of blasphemy than prayer.
But when he shook above the crowd
Its kindled points, he spoke aloud:-
"Wo to the wretch, who fails to rear
At this dread sign the ready spear!
For, as the flames this symbol sear,
His home, the refuge of his fear,

A kindred fate shall know;
Far o'er its roof the volumed flame
Clan-Alpine's vengeance shall proclaim,
While maids and matrons on his name
Shall call down wretchedness and shame,
And infamy and wo."

Then rose the cry of females, shrill
As goss-hawk's whistle on the hill,
Denouncing misery and ill,

Mingled with childhood's babbling trill
Of curses stammered slow,
Answering, with imprecation dread,
"Sunk be his home in embers red!
And cursed be the meanest shed
That e'er shall hide the houseless head,
We doom to want and wo!"
A sharp and shrieking echo gave,
Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave!
And the gray pass where birches wave,
On Beala-nam-bo.

XI.

Then deeper paused the priest anew, And hard his labouring breath he drew,

Whilc, with set teeth and clenched hand,
And eyes that glowed like fiery brand,
He meditated curse more dread,
And deadlier on the clans-man's head,
Who, summoned to his chieftain's aid,
The signal saw and disobeyed.
The crosslet's points of sparkling wood
He quenched among the bubbling blood,
And, as again the sign he reared,

Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:
"When flits this cross from man to man,
Vich-Alpine's summons to his clan,
Burst be the ear that fails to heed!
Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!
May ravens tear the careless eyes,
Wolves make the coward heart their prize!
As sinks that blood-stream in the earth,
So may his heart's blood drench his hearth!
As dies in hissing gore the spark,
Quench thou his fight, destruction dark!
And be the grace to him denied,
Bought by this sign to all beside!"—
He ceased: no echo gave agen
The murmur of the deep amen.

XII.

Then Roderick, with impatient look,
From Brian's hand the symbol took:
"Speed, Malise, speed!" he said, and gave
The crosslet to his hench-man brave.
"The muster-place be Lanric mead-
Instant the time-speed, Malise, speed!"
Like heath-bird, when the hawks pursue,
A barge across Loch-Katrine flew:
High stood the hench-man on the prow,
So rapidly the barge-men row,

The bubbles, where they lanched the boat,
Were all unbroken and afloat,
Dancing in foam and ripple still,
When it had neared the mainland hill;
And from the silver beach's side
Still was the prow three fathom wide,
When lightly bounded to the land
The messenger of blood and brand.

XIII.

Speed, Malise, speed! the dun deer's hide
On fleeter foot was never tied.9
Speed, Malise, speed! such cause of haste
Thine active sinews never braced.
Bend 'gainst the steepy hill thy breast,
Burst down like torrent from its crest;
With short and springing footstep pass
The trembling bog and false morass;
Across the brook like roebuck bound,
And thread the brake like questing hound;
The crag is high, the scaur is deep,
Yet shrink not from the desperate leap;
Parched are thy burning lips and brow,
Yet by the fountain pause not now;
Herald of battle, fate, and fear,
Stretch onward in thy fleet career!
The wounded hind thou track'st not now,
Pursuest not maid through green-wood bough,
Nor pliest thou now thy flying pace,
With rivals in the mountain- race;
But danger, death, and warrior deed,
Are in thy course-Speed, Malise, speed!

XIV.

Fast as the fatal symbol flies,

In arms the huts and hamlets rise;
From winding glen, from upland brown,
They poured each hardy tenant down.

Nor slacked the messenger his pace;
He showed the sign, he named the place,
And, pressing forward like the wind,
Left clamour and surprise behind.
The fisherman forsook the strand,
The swarthy smith took dirk and brand;
With changed cheer, the mower blith
Left in the half cut swathe his sithe;
The herds without a keeper strayed,
The plough was in mid-furrow staid,
The fale'ner tossed his hawk away,
The hunter left the stag at bay;
Prompt at the signal of alarms,
Each son of Alpine rushed to arms;
So swept the tumult and affray
Along the margin of Achray.
Alas! thou lovely lake! that e'er
Thy banks should echo sounds of fear!
The rocks, the bosky thickets, sleep
So stilly on thy bosom deep,

The lark's blith carol, from the cloud,
Seems for the scene too gayly loud.

XV.

Speed, Malise, speed! the lake is past,
Duneraggan's huts appear at last,

And peep, like moss-grown rocks, half seen,
Half hidden in the copse so green:
There mayst thou rest, thy labour done,
Their lord shall speed the signal on.-
As stoops the hawk upon his prey,
The hench-man shot him down the way.
What woful accents load the gale?
The funeral yell, the female wail!-
A gallant hunter's sport is o'er,
A valiant warrior fights no more.
Who, in the battle or the chase,

At Roderick's side shall fill his place?
Within the hall, where torches' ray
Supplied the excluded beams of day,
Lies Duncan on his lowly bier,
And o'er him streams his widow's tear.
His stripling son stands mournful Dy,
His youngest weeps, but knows not why;
The village maids and matrons round
The dismal coronach 10 resound.

XVI.

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

Taxes une 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,t
Sage counsel i cumber,

Red hand in the foray,

How sound is thy slumber!

Like the dew on the mountain,

Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and for ever!
XVII.

See Stumah, who, the bier beside,
His master's corpse with wonder eyed,
Poor Stumah! whom his least halloo
Could send like lightning o'er the dew,
Bristles his crest, and points his ears,
As if some stranger step he hears.
'Tis not a mourner's muffled tread,
Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead,
But headlong haste, or deadly fear,
Urge the precipitate career.
All stand aghast:-unheeding all,
The hench-man bursts into the hall:
Before the dead man's bier he stood,
Held forth the cross besmeared with blood;
"The muster-place is Lauric mead;
Speed forth the signal! clansmen, speed!"
XVIII.

Angus, the heir of Duncan's line,
Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign.
In haste the stripling to his side

His father's dirk and broad-sword tied;
But when he saw his mother's eye
Watch him in speechless ägony,
Back to her opened arms he flew,
Pressed on her lips a fond adieu-
"Alas!" she sobbed," and yet be gone,
And speed thee forth like Duncan's son!"
One look he cast upon the bier,
Dashed from his eye the gathering tear,
Breathed deep, to clear his labouring breast,
And tossed aloft his bonnet crest,
Then, like the high-bred colt, when, freed,
First he essays his fire and speed,
He vanished, and o'er moor and moss
Sped forward with the fiery cross.
Suspended was the widow's tear,
While yet his footsteps she could hear;
And when she marked the hench-man's eye
Wet with unwonted sympathy,
"Kinsman," she said,
That should have sped thine errand on;
The oak has fallen-the sapling bough

his race is run,

Is all Duneraggan's shelter now.
Yet trust I well, his duty done,
The orphan's God will guard my son.-
And you, in many a danger true,
At Duncan's hest your blades that drew,
To arms, and guard that orphan's head!
Let babes and women wail the dead."
Then weapon-clang, and martial call,
Resounded through the funeral hall,
While from the walls the attendant band
Snatched sword and targe, with hurried hand;
And short and flitting energy

Glanced from the mourner's sunken eye,

As if the sounds, to warrior dear,

Might rouse her Duncan from his bier.

But faded soon that borrowed force;

Grief claimed his right, and tears their course.

The tear that gathered in his eye,
He left the mountain breeze to dry;
Until, where Teith's young waters roll,
Betwixt him and a wooded knoll,
That graced the sable strath with green,
The chapel of saint Bride was seen.
Swoin was the stream, remote the bridge,
But Angus paused not on the edge;
Though the dark waves danced dizzily,
Though reeled his sympathetic eye,
He dashed amid the torrent's roar;
His right hand high the crosslet bore,
His left the pole-axe grasped, to guide
And stay his footing in the tide.

He stumbled twice the foam splashed high,
With hoarser swell the stream raced by;
And had he fallen,-forever there,
Farewell Duncraggan's orphan heir!
But still, as if in parting life,
Firmer he grasped the cross of strife,
Until the opposing bank he gained,
And up the chapel pathway strained.

XX.

A blithsome rout, that morning tide,
Had sought the chapel of saint Bride.
Her troth Tombea's Mary gave
To Norman, heir of Armandave,
And, issuing from the Gothic arch,
The bridal now resumed their march.
In rude, but glad procession, came
Bonnetted sire and coif-clad dame;
And plaided youth, with jest and jeer,
Which snooded maiden would not hear;
And children, that, unwitting why,
Lent the gay shout their shrilly cry;
And minstrels, that in measures vied
Before the young and bonny bride,
Whose downcast eye and cheek disclose
The tear and blush of morning rose.
With virgin step, and bashful hand,
She held the kerchief's snowy band;
The gallant bridegroom, by her side,
Beheld his prize with victor's pride,
And the glad mother in her ear
Was closely whispering word of cheer.

XXI.

Who meets them at the church-yard gate?-
The messenger of fear and fate!"
Haste in his hurried accent lies,
And grief is swimming in his eyes.
All dripping from the recent flood,
Panting and travel-soiled he stood,
The fatal sign of fire and sword

Held forth, and spoke the appointed word;
"The muster-place is Lanric mead;
Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!"—
And must he change so soon the hand,
Just linked to his by holy band,
For the fell cross of blood and brand?
And must the day, so blith that rose,
And promised rapture in the close,
Before its setting hour, divide

The bridegroom from the plighted bride?
O fatal doom!-it must! it must!
Clan-Alpine's cause, her chieftain's trust,
Her summons dread, brooks no delay;
Stretch to the race-away! away!

XXII.

Yet slow he laid his plaid aside,
And, lingering, eyed his lovely bride,

Until he saw the starting tear
Speak wo he might not stop to cheer;
Then, trusting not a second look,
In haste he sped him up the brook,
Nor backward glanced till on the heath,
Where Lubnaig's lake supplies the Teith.-
What in the racer's bosom stirred?-
The sickened pang of hope deferred,
And memory, with a torturing train
Of all his morning visions vain.
Mingled with love's impatience, came
The manly thirst for martial fame:
The stormy joy of mountaineers,
Ere yet they rush upon the spears;
And zeal for clan and chieftain burning,
And hope, from well-fought field returning,
With war's red honours on his crest,
To clasp his Mary to his breast.
Stung by his thoughts, o'er bank and brae,
Like fire from flint he glanced away,
While high resolve, and feeling strong,
Burst into voluntary song.

XXIII.

SONG,

The heath this night must be my bed,
The bracken curtain for my head,
My lullaby the warder's tread,

Far, far from love and thee, Mary!
To-morrow eve, more stilly laid,
My couch may be my bloody plaid,
My vesper song, thy wail, sweet inaid!
It will not waken me, Mary!

1 may not, dare not, fancy now
The grief that clouds thy lovely brow,
I dare not think upon thy vow,

And all it promised me, Mary!
No fond regret must Norman know;
When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,
His heart must be like bended bow,

His foot like arrow free, Mary!
A time will come with feeling fraught;
For, if I fall in battle fought,
Thy hapless lover's dying thought

Shall be a thought on thee, Mary!
And if returned from conquered foes,
How blithly will the evening close,
How sweet the linnet sing repose,

To my young bride and me, Mary!
XXIV.

Not faster o'er thy heathery braes,
Balquidder, speeds the midnight blaze,12
Rushing, in conflagration strong,
Thy deep ravines and dells along,
Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow,
And reddening the dark lakes below;
Nor faster speeds it, nor so far,
As o'er thy heaths the voice of war.
The signal roused to martial coil
The sullen margin of Loch-Voil,
Waked still Loch-Doine, and to the source
Alarmed, Balvaig, thy swampy course;
Thence, southward turned its rapid road
Adown Strath-Gartney's valley broad,
Till rose in arms each man might claim
A portion in Clan-Alpine's name;
From the gray sire, whose trembling hand
Could hardly buckle on his brand,
To the raw boy, whose shaft and bow
Were yet scarce terror to the crow.

• Bracken-Fern.

Each valley, each sequestered glen,
Mustered its little horde of men,
That met as torrents from the height
In highland dales their streams unice,
Still gathering, as they pour along,
A voice more loud, a tide more strong,
Till at the rendezvous they stood

By hundreds, prompt for blows and blood;
Each trained to arms since life began,
Owning no tie but to his clan,

No oath, but by his chieftain's hand, 13
No law, but Roderick Dhu's command.

XXV.

That summer morn had Roderick Dhu
Surveyed the skirts of Ben-venue,
And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath,
To view the frontiers of Menteith.
All backward came with news of truce;
Still lay each martial Græme and Bruce,
In Rednock courts no horsemen wait,
No banner waved on Cardross gate,
On Duchray's towers no beacon shone,
Nor scared the herons from Loch-Con:
Ali seemed at peace.-Now, wot ye why
The chieftain, with such anxious eye,
Ere to the muster he repair,

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,
That morning from the isle withdrew,
And in a deep sequestered dell
Had sought a low and lonely cell.
By many a bard, in celtic tongue,
Has Coir-nan-Uriskin' been sung;
A softer name the Saxons gave,
And called the grot the Goblin-cave.
XXVI.

It was a wild and strange retreat,
As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet.
The dell, upon the mountain's crest,
Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast;
Its trench had stayed full many a rock,
Hurled by primeval earthquake shock
From Ben-venue's gray summit wild;
And here, in random ruin piled,
They frowned incumbent o'er the spot,
And formed the rugged sylvan grot.
The oak and birch, with mingled shade
At noontide there a twilight made,
Unless when short and sudden shone
Some straggling beam on cliff or stone,
With such a glimpse as prophet's eye
Gains on thy depth, futurity.
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 gray.
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.
Gray superstition's whisper dread
Debarred the spot to vulgar tread:
For there, she said, did fays resort,
And satyrs hold their sylvan court,

*The Urisk, or highland satyr.-See note,

By moonlight tread their mystic maze, And blast the rash beholder's gaze.

XXVII.

Now eve, with western shadows long,
Floated on Katrine bright and strong,
When Roderick, with a chosen few,
Repassed the heights of Ben-venue.
Above the goblin-cave they go,
Through the wild pass of Beal-nam-bo;15
The prompt retainers speed before,
To lanch the shallop from the shore,
For 'cross Loch-Katrine lies his way,
To view the passes of Achray,
And place his clansmen in array.
Yet lags the chief in musing mind,
Unwonted sight, his men behind.
A single page, to bear his sword,
Alone attended on his lord;16

The rest their way through thickets break,
And soon await him by the lake.

It was a fair and gallant sight,

To view them from the neighbouring height,
By the low levelled sunbeam's light;
For strength and stature, from the clan
Each warrior was a chosen man,
As e'en afar might well be seen,
By their proud step and martial mien.
Their feathers dance, their tartans float,
Their targets gleam, as by the boat
A wild and warlike group they stand,
That well became such mountain strand.
XXVIII.

Their chief, with step reluctant, still
Was lingering on the craggy hill,
Hard by where turned apart the road
To Douglas's obscure abode.

It was but with that dawning morn
That Roderick Dhu had proudly sworn,
To drown his love in war's wild roar,
Nor think of Ellen Douglas more;
But he who stems a stream with sand,
And fetters flame with flaxen band,
Has yet a harder task to prove-
By firm resolve to conquer love!
Eve finds the chief, like restless ghost,
Still hovering near his treasure lost;
For though his haughty heart deny
A parting meeting to his eye,
Still fondly strains his anxious ear,
The accents of her voice to hear,
And inly did he curse the breeze
That waked to sound the rustling trees.
But hark! what mingles in the strain?
It is the harp of Allan-bane,

That wakes its measures slow and high,
Attuned to sacred minstrelsy.

What melting voice attends the strings?
'Tis Ellen, or an angel, sings.