Few suns have set, since Woodhouselee The war-worn soldier turned him home. There, wan from her maternal throes, And peaceful nursed her new-born child. O change accursed! past are those days; What sheeted phantom wanders wild, The wildered traveller sees her glide, He ceased-and cries of rage and grief And half unsheathed his Arran brand. But who, o'er bush, o'er stream, and rock, Whose cheek is pale, whose eyeballs glare, From gory selle, and reeling steed, He dashed his carbine on the ground. Sternly he spoke-""Tis sweet to hear To drink a tyrant's dying groan. Your slaughtered quarry proudly trod, From the wild Border's humbled side, And smiled, the trait'rous pomp to see. But can stern Power, with all his vaunt, With hackbut bent, my secret stand Glencairn and stout Parkhead were nigh, 'Mid pennoned spears, a steely grove, From the raised visor's shade, his eye, Dark rolling, glanced the ranks along, And his steel truncheon, waved on high, Seemed marshalling the iron throng. But yet his saddened brow confessed The death-shot parts-the charger springs- What joy the raptured youth can feel, The wolf, by whom his infant fell! But dearer to my injured eye, To see in dust proud Murray roll; And mine was ten times trebled joy To hear him groan his felon soul. My Margaret's spectre glided near; Then speed thee, noble Chatlerault ! Spread to the wind thy bannered tree! Vaults every warrior to his steed; 66 But, see! the minstrel vision fails The glimmering spears are seen no more: Or sink in Evan's lonely roar. For the loud bugle, pealing high, The blackbird whistles down the vale, And sunk in ivied ruins lie The bannered towers of Evandale. For chiefs, intent on bloody deed, And Vengeance, shouting o'er the slain, And long may Peace and Pleasure own Nor e'er a ruder guest be known On the fair banks of Evandale! THE GREY BROTHER. A FRAGMENT. THE tradition, upon which the tale is founded, regards a house upon the barony of Gilmerton, near Lasswade, in Mid-Lothian. This building, now called Gilmerton Grange, was formerly named Burndale, from the following tragic adventure:-The barony of Gilmerton belonged, of yore, to a gentleman named Heron, who had one beautiful daughter. This young lady was seduced by the Abbot of Newbottle, a richly-endowed abbey, upon the banks of the South Eske, now a seat of the Marquis of Lothian. Heron came to the knowledge of this circumstance, and learned, also, that the lovers carried on their guilty intercourse by the contrivance of the lady's nurse, who lived at this house of Gilmerton Grange, or Burndale. He formed a resolution of bloody vengeance, undeterred by the supposed sanctity of the clerical character, or by the stronger claims of natural affection. Choosing, therefore, a dark and windy night, when the objects of his vengeance were engaged in a stolen interview, he set fire to a stack of dried thorns and other combustibles, which he had caused to be piled against the house, and reduced to a pile of glowing ashes the dwelling, with all its inmates. The scene with which the ballad opens, was suggested by a curious passage in the life of Alexander Peden, one of the wandering and persecuted teachers of the sect of Cameronians, during the reign of Charles II. and that of his successor James IL THE Pope he was saying the high, high mass, All on Saint Peter's day, With the power to him given, by the saints in heaven, The Pope he was saying the blessèd mass, And the people kneeled around, And from each man's soul his sins did pass, And all among the crowded throng, While through vaulted roof, and aisles aloof, At the holiest word, he quivered for fear, And, when he would the chalice rear, "The breath of one, of evil deed, A being, whom no blessed word A wretch, at whose approach abhorred, Up, up, unhappy! haste, arise! I charge thee not to stop my voice, Amid them all a Pilgrim kneeled, For forty days and rights so drear, And, save with bread and water clear, Amid the penitential flock, Seemed none more bent to pray; Again unto his native land His unblessed feet his native seat, 'Mid Eske's fair woods, regain; Through woods more fair no stream more sweet Rolls to the eastern main. And lords to meet the Pilgrim came, For all 'mid Scotland's chiefs of fame, And boldly for his country, still, Ay, e'en when, on the banks of Till, Sweet are the paths, O, passing sweet! There the rapt poet's step may rove, There Beauty, led by timid Love, May shun the tell-tale ray; From that fair dome, where suit is paid By blast of bugle free, To Auchendinny's hazel glade, And haunted Woodhouselee. Who knows not Melville's beechy grove, Yet never a path, from day to day, Save but the solitary way, To Burndale's ruined Grange. A woeful place was that, I ween, As sorrow could desire; For, nodding to the fall was each crumbling wall, And the roof was scathed with fire. |