AT FLODDEN.

A FRAGMENT.

(1799.)

Go sit old Cheviot's crest below,
And pensive mark the lingering snow
In all his scaurs abide,

And slow dissolving from the hill
In many a sightless, soundless rill,
Feed sparkling Bowmont's tide.

Fair shines the stream by bank and lea, As wimpling to the eastern sea

She seeks Till's sullen bed, Indenting deep the fatal plain, Where Scotland's noblest, brave in vain,

Around their monarch bled.

And westward hills on hills you see,
Even as old Ocean's mightiest sea
Heaves high her waves of foam,
Dark and snow-ridged from Cutsfeld's
wold

To the proud foot of Cheviot roll'd,
Earth's mountain billows come.

A SONG OF VICTORY.
(1800.)

(From The House of Aspen.')

Joy to the victors! the sons of old Aspen !

Joy to the race of the battle and scar !

Glory's proud garland triumphantly grasping;

Generous in peace, and victorious in war.

Joy to each warrior, true follower of Aspen !

Joy to the heroes that gain'd the bold day!

Health to our wounded, in agony gasping;

Peace to our brethren that fell in the fray!

Boldly this morning,

Roderic's power scorning,

Well for their chieftain their blades did they wield:

Joy blest them dying,

As Maltingen flying,

Low laid his banners, our conquest adorning,

Their death-clouded eyeballs descried on the field!

Now to our home, the proud mansion of Aspen,

Bend we, gay victors, triumphant

away;

There each fond damsel, her gallant

youth clasping,

Shall wipe from his forehead the stains of the fray.

Listening the prancing

Of horses advancing;

E'en now on the turrets our maidens appear.

Love our hearts warming,

Songs the night charming, Round goes the grape in the goblet gay dancing;

Love, wine, and song, our blithe evening shall cheer!

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, On the smooth green was carved plain, '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.

'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,
Ah!' sighing sad, that lady said,

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

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 him— Unhonour'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?

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! Muteareye 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 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.

'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,