And pour'd the hissing tide: Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain, And strove and struggled all in vain, For rallying but to fall again, He totter'd, sunk, and died! Did none attempt, before he fell, 'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams, Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke, Where Muggins broke before. But sulphury stench and boiling drench Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved, What are they fear'd on? fools! 'od rot 'em!" Ancient Hunting Song. THE hunt is up, the hunt is up! Sing merrily we, the hunt is up! The birds they sing, The deer they fling, Hey nonny, nony, no; The hounds they cry, The hunt is up, the hunt is up! The wood resounds This merry sport, Hey trolilo, trololilo! The hunt is up, the hunt is up! Sing merrily we, the hunt is up! Then hie apace Unto the chase, While every thing Doth sweetly sing, The hunt is up, the hunt is up! 229 A Lay of Fairy Land. It is upon the Sabbath-day, at rising of the sun, That to Glenmore's black forest-side a shepherdess hath gone, From eagle and from raven to guard her little flock, And read her Bible as she sits on greensward or on rock. Her widow-mother wept to hear her whisper'd prayer so sweet, Then through the silence bless'd the sound of her soft parting feet; And thought, "While thou art praising God amid the hills so calm, Far off this broken voice, my child, will join the morning psalm." So down upon her rushy couch her moisten'd cheek she laid, And away into the morning hush is flown her Highland maid; In heaven the stars are all bedimm'd, but in its dewy mirth A star more beautiful than they is shining on the earth. In the deep mountain-hollow the dreamy day is done, For close the peace of Sabbath brings the rise and set of sun; The mother through her lonely door looks forth unto the green, Yet the shadow of her shepherdess is no where to be seen. Within her loving bosom stirs one faint throb of fear "Oh! why so late ?"-a footstep-and she knows her child is near; So out into the evening the gladden'd mother goes, And between her and the crimson light her daughter's beauty glows. The heather-balm is fragrant, the heather-bloom is fair, But 'tis neither heather-balm nor bloom that wreathes round Mhairi's hair; Round her white brows so innocent, and her blue quiet eyes, That look out bright, in smiling light, beneath the flowery dyes. These flowers, by far too beautiful among our hills to grow, These gem-crown'd stalks, too tender to bear one flake of snow: Not all the glens of Caledon could yield so bright a band, That in its lustre breathes and blooms of some fair foreign land. "The hawk hath long been sleeping upon the pillar stone, And what hath kept my Mhairi in the moorlands all alone? And where got she those lovely flowers mine old eyes dimly see? Where'er they grew, it must have been upon a lovely tree." "Sit down beneath our elder-shade, and I my tale will tell." And speaking, on her mother's lap the wondrous chaplet fell; It seem'd as if its blissful breath did her worn heart restore, Till the faded eyes of age did beam as they had beam'd of yore. "The day was something dim-but the gracious sunshine fell On me, and on my sheep and lambs, and our own little dell; Some lay down in the warmth, and some began to feed, And I took out the Holy Book, and thereupon did read. "And while that I was reading of Him who for us died, And blood and water shed for us from out his blessed side, An angel's voice above my head came singing o'er and o'er, In Abernethy-wood it sank, now rose in dark. Glenmore. |
