The homes of my kinsmen are blazing to heaven, The bright star of morning has blush'd at the view; The moon has stood still on the verge of the even, To wipe from her pale cheek the tint of the dew; Death, hast thou no shaft for old Callum-a-Glen? The sun, in his glory, has look'd on our sorrow, Our valour and faith are not hid from his ken. On all the proud foes of old Callum-a-Glen. "It is a pity," says Mr. Hogg, "that I have too much hand in these songs from the Gaelic, to speak of them as I feel; and though this is indebted to me for the rhyme, I could take it against any piece of modern poetry." Such is the note which accompanies this song in the Jacobite Relics. It is no gracious thing to question a poet's judgment in a matter of verse. I cannot say that I am captivated with this Highland song so much as Mr. Hogg is; the language is cumbrous; it wants the air of genuine simplicity which touches me so much in Burns's Lass of Inverness. It contains no new images of heroic fortitude, or pathetic suffering or despair. THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND. Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn The wretched owner sees afar What boots it then in every clime, Thy towering spirit now is broke, Thy neck is bended to the yoke: What foreign arms could never quell, rage and rancour fell. By civil The rural pipe and merry lay No more shall cheer the happy day; Oh, baneful curse! oh, fatal morn, The pious mother, doom'd to death, She views the shades of night descend; And, stretch'd beneath the inclement skies, Weeps o'er her tender babes, and dies. Whilst the warm blood bedews my veins, Smollett was a Jacobite, but it required little party spirit to inspire a song which gives a moving picture of domestic desolation and human sorrow. The Duke of Cumberland nearly fulfilled the prediction ascribed to Alexander Peden; "The day will come, when men may ride an hundred miles in Scotland, nor see a reeking house, nor hear a crowing cock!"-This moving song was made on the ravages of the Duke of Cumberland, in 1746. The eastern Cameronians, during the rebellion of 1715, acted a curious but characteristic part. They armed and advanced upon Dumfries, but seemed uncertain whether they would fight for the "man who sought the temporal crown, or the man who wore it." They refused to acknowledge any king but Jesus, or to mingle with any people who were not covenanted-they prayed, preached, disputed, and dispersed. VOL. III. R THE WAES OF SCOTLAND. When I left thee, bonny Scotland, And blithe as a bonny bride i' the morn, A bonny lass sat at our town end, Oh hey! oh hey! sung the bonny lass, As een did never see. Oh hey, oh hey, for my father auld! Oh hey, for my mither dear! And my heart will burst for the bonny lad Wha left me lanesome here. I hadna gane in my ain Scotland A traitor's head! and, A traitor's head! Loud bawl'd a bloody loon; But I drew frae the sheath my glaive o' weir, And strack the reaver down. |