From high Dunedin's towers we come, A band of brothers true; Our casques the leopard's spoils surround; With Scotland's hardy thistle crown'd, We boast the red and blue.* Though tamely crouch to Gallia's frown Their ravish'd toys though Romans mourn, O! had they mark'd th' avenging call+ Their brethren's murder gave, Disunion ne'er their ranks had mown, Nor patriot valour, desperate grown, Sought freedom in the grave! Shall we, too, bend the stubborn head, Or brook a victor's scorn? No! though destruction o'er the land Come pouring as a flood, The sun that sees our falling day Shall mark our sabres' deadly sway, And set that night in blood. For gold let Gallia's legions fight, Unbribed, unbought, our swords we draw, If ever breath of British gale Or footstep of invader rude, With rapine foul, and red with blood, Pollute our happy shore Then farewell home! and farewell friends! Resolved, we mingle in the tide, To horse to horse! the sabres gleam; MAC-GREGOR'S GATHERING. WRITTEN FOR ALBYN'S ANTHOLOGY. Air-Thain' a Grigalach.* THESE verses are adapted to a very wild, yet lively gathering-tune, used by the Mac-Gregors. The severe treatment of this clan, their outlawry, and the proscription of their very name, are alluded to in the ballad. THE moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae, And the clan has a name that is nameless by day! Then gather, gather, gather, Gregalach! Gather, gather, gather, &c. Our signal for fight, that from monarchs we drew, Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo! Then haloo, Gregalach! haloo, Gregalach! Haloo, haloo, haloo, Gregalach, &c. Glen Orchy's proud mountains, Coalchuirn and her towers, Glenstrae and Glenlyon no longer are ours: We're landless, landless, landless, Gregalach! But doom'd and devoted by vassal and lord If they rob us of name, and pursue us with beagles, Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the eagles! Then vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, Gregalach! Vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, &c. While there's leaves in the forest, and foam on the river, Mac-Gregor, despite them, shall flourish for ever! Come then, Gregalach! come then, Gregalach! Through the depths of Loch Katrine the steed shall career, O'er the peak of Ben Lomond the galley shall steer, And the rocks of Craig Royston like icicles melt, Ere our wrongs be forgot, or our vengeance unfelt! Then gather, gather, gather, Gregalach! Gather, gather, gather, &c. *The royal colours. + The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss guards, on the fatal 10th of August, 1792. It is painful, but not useless, to remark, that the passive temper with which the Swiss regarded the death of their bravest countrymen, mercilessly slaughtered in discharge of their duty, encou raged and authorized the progressive injustice by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people upon the continent, have, at length, been converted into the citadel of a foreign and military despot. A state degraded is half enslaved. MACKRIMMON'S LAMENT. Air-Cha till mi tuille.† MACKRIMMON, hereditary piper to the laird of Macleod, is said to have composed this lament when the clan was about to depart upon a distant * "The Mac-Gregor is come." +"We return no more." the head of an army superior to his own. The words of the set theme, or melody, to which the pipe variations are applied, run thus in Gaelic: Piobaireachd Dhonuil, piobaireachd Dhonuil; Piobaireachd Dhonuil Duidh, piobaireachd Dhonuil; and dangerous expedition. The minstrel was impressed with a belief, which the event verified, that he was to be slain in the approaching feud; and hence the Gaelic words, "Cha till mi tuille; ged thillis Macleod, cha till Macrimmon," "I shall never return; although Macleod returns, yet Mack-Piobaireachd Dhonuil Duidh, piobaireachd Dhonuil; rimmon shall never return!" The piece is but too Piob agus bratach air faiche Inverlochi. well known, from its being the strain with which The pipe summons of Donald the Black, the emigrants from the west highlands and isles The pipe summons of Donald the Black, usually take leave of their native shore. The war-pipe and the pennon are on the gathering-place at Inverlochy. The frequent clang of courser's hoof, Where held the cloak'd patrol their course, And spurr'd 'gainst storm the swerving horse; Patrol nor sentinel may hear; When down the destined plain Such forms were seen, such sounds were heard, When Scotland's James his march prepared For Flodden's fatal plain; Such, when he drew his ruthless sword, The yet unchristen'd Dane. They wheel'd their ring-dance hand in hand, The seer, who watch'd them ride the storm, And still their ghastly roundelay Was of the coming battle-fray, And of the destined dead. SONG. Wheel the wild dance, While lightnings glance, And thunders rattle loud, And call the brave To bloody grave, To sleep without a shroud. Our airy feet, So light and fleet, They do not bend the rye, That sinks its head when whirlwinds rave, And swells again in eddying wave, As each wild gust blows by; But still the corn, At dawn of morn, Our fatal steps that bore, At eve lies waste, A trampled paste Of blackening mud and gore. Wheel the wild dance, While lightnings glance, And thunders rattle loud, And call the brave To bloody grave, To sleep without a shroud. Wheel the wild dance, Brave sons of France! For you our ring makes room; Make space full wide For martial pride, For banner, spear, and plume. Approach, draw near, Proud cuirassier! Room for the men of steel! Through crest and plate The broadsword's weight, Both head and heart shall feel. Wheel the wild dance, And thunders rattle loud, And call the brave To bloody grave, To sleep without a shroud. Sons of the spear! You feel us near, In many a ghastly dream; With fancy's eye Our forms you spy, And hear our fatal scream. With clearer sight Ere falls the night, Just when to weal or wo Your disembodied souls take flight Wheel the wild dance, And thunders rattle loud, And call the brave To bloody grave, To sleep without a shroud. Burst, ye clouds, in tempest showers, See, the east grows wan- To the wrath of man. At morn, gray Allan's mates with awe The legend heard him say: Ere closed that bloody day. He sleeps far from his highland heath-. His comrades tell the tale On piquet-post, when ebbs the night, FAREWELL TO THE MUSE. ENCHANTRESS, farewell, who so oft has decoy'd me, At the close of the evening, through woodlands to roam, Where the forester, lated, with wonder espied me Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home. Farewell, and take with thee thy numbers wild, speaking The language alternate of rapture and wo: O! none but some lover, whose heart-strings are breaking, The pang that I feel at our parting can know. Each joy thou couldst double, and when there came sorrow, Or pale disappointment, to darken my way, HELLVELLYN. IN the spring of 1805, a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition, perished by losing his way on the mountain Hellvellyn. His remains were not discovered till three months afterwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful terrier bitch, his constant attendant during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmoreland. 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. And Catchedicam its left verge was defending, Dark green was the spot 'mid the brown mountain heather, Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretch'd in Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather, clay. Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start? What voice was like thine, that could sing of to- How many long days and long weeks didst thou morrow, Till forgot in the strain was the grief of to-day! But when friends drop around us in life's weary waning, number, Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart? And, O! was it meet that, no requiem read o'er him, The grief, queen of numbers, thou canst not as- No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him, suage; Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remain ing, The languor of pain, and the chillness of age. To sing how a warrior lay stretch'd on the plain, To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o'er, more. 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 With 'scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded, In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beam- Far adown the lone aisle sacred music is streaming, But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature, To lay down thy. head like the meek mountain lamb: Welcome, from sweeping o'er sea and through channel, Hardships and danger despising for fame, When, wilder'd, he drops from some cliff huge in Furnishing story for glory's bright annal, stature, And draws his last sob by the side of his dam. And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying, Welcome, my wanderer, to Jeanie and hame! Enough, now thy story in annals of glory, Has humbled the pride of France, Holland, and Spain; With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying, No more shalt thou grieve me, no more shalt thou In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam. leave me, I never will part with my Willie again. WANDERING WILLIE. ALL joy was bereft me the day that you left me, And climb'd the tall vessel to sail yon wide sea; O weary betide it! I wander'd beside it, And bann'd it for parting my Willie and me. Far o'er the wave hast thou follow'd thy fortune, Oft fought the squadrons of France and of Spain; Ae kiss of welcome's worth twenty at parting, Now I hae gotten my Willie again. When the sky it was mirk, and the winds they were wailing, I sat on the beach wi' the tear in my e'e, And thought o' the bark where my Willie was sailing, And wish'd that the tempest could a' blaw on me. Now that thy gallant ship rides at her mooring, When the lights they did blaze, and the guns they did rattle, And blithe was each heart for the great victory, In secret I wept for the dangers of battle, And thy glory itself was scarce comfort to me. But now shalt thou tell, while I eagerly listen, For sweet after danger's the tale of the war. And O! how we doubt when there's distance 'tween lovers, When there's naething to speak to the heart thro' the e'e; How often the kindest and warmest prove rovers, And the love of the faithfullest ebbs like the sea. Till, at times, could I help it? I pined and I ponder'd, If love could change notes like the bird on the tree Now I'll ne'er ask if thine eyes may hae wander'd, Enough, thy leal heart has been constant to me. HUNTING SONG. WAKEN, lords and ladies gay, With hawk, and horse, and hunting spear; Waken, lords and ladies gay, The mist has left the mountain gray, Waken, lords and ladies gay, Louder, louder chant the lay, THE BARD'S INCANTATION. WRITTEN UNDER THE THREAT OF INVASION, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1804. THE forest of Glenmore is drear, It is all of black pine and the dark oak tree; And the midnight wind to the mountain deer Is whistling the forest lullaby: |