With short and springing footstep pass

The trembling bog and false morass;

Across the brook like roe-buck 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 greenwood 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 shewed 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 blithe
Left in the half-cut swathe his scythe;

The herds without a keeper strayed,
The plough was in mid-furrow staid,
The falc'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 blithe carol from the cloud,

Seems for the scene too gaily loud.

XV.

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

And peep, like moss-grown rocks, half seen,

Half hidden in the copse so green;

There may'st 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 woeful 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

Supplies 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 by,
His youngest weeps, but knows not why;
The village maids and matrons round

The dismal coronach * 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, re-appearing,

From the rain drops shall borrow,

But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow!

* Funeral Song. See Note.

The hand of the reåper

Takes the ears that are hoary,

Like the bubble on the fountain,

Thou art gone, and for ever!

*Or corri. The hollow side of the hill, where game usually lies.