Upon her eyrie nods the erne,

The deer has sought the brake;
The small birds will not sing aloud,

The springing trout lies still,

So darkly glooms yon thunder cloud,

That swathes, as with a purple shroud,

Benledi's distant hill.

Is it the thunder's solemn sound

That mutters deep and dread,

Or echoes from the groaning ground

The warrior's measured tread?

Is it the lightning's quivering glance

That on the thicket streams,

Or do they flash on spear and lance
The sun's retiring beams?

-I see the dagger-crest of Mar,

I see the Moray's silver star,

Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war,

That up the lake comes winding far!

To hero boune for battle-strife,

Or bard of martial lay,

'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,

One glance at their array!

XVI.

"Their light-armed archers far and near

Surveyed the tangled ground,

Their centre ranks, with pike and spear,

A twilight forest frowned,

Their barded horsemen, in the rear,

The stern battalia crowned.

No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang,

Still were the pipe and drum;

Save heavy tread, and armour's clang,

The sullen march was dumb.

There breathed no wind their crests to shake,

Or wave their flags abroad;

Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake,

That shadowed o'er their road.

Their vaward scouts no tidings bring,

Can rouse no lurking foe,

Nor spy a trace of living thing,

Save when they stirred the roe;

The host moves, like a deep-sea wave,
Where rise no rocks its pride to brave,
High-swelling, dark, and slow.

The lake is passed, and now they gain
A narrow and a broken plain,

Before the Trosach's rugged jaws ;

And here the horse and spear-men pause,

While, to explore the dangerous glen,
Dive through the pass the archer-men.

XVII.

"At once there rose so wild a yell

Within that dark and narrow dell,

As all the fiends, from heaven that fell,

Had pealed the banner-cry of hell !

Forth from the pass in tumult driven,

Like chaff before the wind of heaven,

The archery appear:

For life! for life! their flight they ply-
And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry,
And plaids and bonnets waving high,
And broad-swords flashing to the sky,
Are maddening in the rear.
Onward they drive, in dreadful race,

Pursuers and pursued ;

Before that tide of flight and chase,

How shall it keep its rooted place,

The spearmen's twilight wood?

-Down, down,' cried Mar, your lances down! Bear back both friend and foe!'

Like reeds before the tempest's frown,

That serried grove of lances brown

At once lay levell❜d low;

And closely shouldering side to side,

The bristling ranks the onset bide.—

We'll quell the savage mountaineer,

*

As their Tinchel cows the

game!

They come as fleet as forest deer,

We'll drive them back as tame.'

XVIII.

"Bearing before them, in their course, The relics of the archer force,

Like wave with crest of sparkling foam,

Right onward did Clan-Alpine come.

Above the tide, each broad-sword bright
Was brandishing like beam of light,
Each targe was dark below;

And with the ocean's mighty swing,

When heaving to the tempest's wing,

They hurled them on the foe.

* A circle of sportsmen, who, by surrounding a great space, and gradually narrowing, brought immense quantities of deer together, which usually made desperate efforts to break through the Tinchel.