"Souls of the mighty, wake and say,

To what high strain your harps were strung,
When Lochlin plough'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?-Ye ne'er were mute,

When Murder with his bloody foot,

And Rapine with his iron hand,

Were hovering near yon mountain strand.

* Where the Norwegian invader of Scotland received two bloody defeats.

"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 Coilgach,* first who roll'd his car, Through the deep ranks of Roman war, To him of veteran memory dear, Who victor died on Aboukir.

66

'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 !"—

* The Galgacus of Tacitus.

The wind is hush'd, and still the lake-
Strange murmurs fill my tingling 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 !"—

ON THE

MASSACRE OF GLENCOE.

“O TELL me, Harper, wherefore flow

Thy wayward notes of wail and woe
Far down the desert of Glencoe,

Where none may list their melody?
Say, harp'st thou to the mists that fly,
Or to the dun deer glancing by,

Or to the eagle that from high

Screams chorus to thy minstrelsy ?"

No, not to these, for they have rest,The mist-wreath has the mountain-crest,

The stag his lair, the erne her nest,

Abode of lone security.

But those for whom I pour

the lay,

Not wild-wood deep, nor mountain grey,
Not this deep dell that shrouds from day,

Could screen from treach'rous cruelty.

"Their flag was furl'd, and mute their drum,
The very household dogs were dumb,
Unwont to bay at guests that come
In guise of hospitality.

His blithest notes the piper plied,
Her gayest snood the maiden tied,

The dame her distaff flung aside,

To tend her kindly housewifery.

"The hand that mingled in the meal, At midnight drew the felon steel,

And

gave the host's kind breast to feel
Meed for his hospitality!