I.
Time rolls his ceaseless course.
The race of yore, Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marvelling boyhood legends store Of their strange ventures happed by land or sea,
How are they blotted from the things that be! How few, all weak and withered of their force,
Wait on the verge of dark eternity, Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse,
To sweep them from out sight!
Time rolls his ceaseless course.
Yet live there still who can remember well, How, when a mountain chief his bugle blew,
Both field and forest, dingle, cliff; and dell, And solitary heath, the signal knew;
And fast the faithful clan around him drew. What time the warning note was keenly wound,
What time aloft their kindred banner flew, While clamorous war-pipes yelled the gathering sound,
And while the Fiery Cross glanced like a meteor, round.
II.
The Summer dawn's reflected
To purple changed Loch Katrine blue;
Mildly and soft the western
Just kissed the lake, just stirred the trees,
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy,
Trembled but dimpled not for
The mountain-shadows on her
Were neither broken nor at rest;
In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the
Her chalice reared of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn;
The gray mist left the mountain-side,
The torrent showed its glistening pride;
Invisible in flecked sky The lark sent clown her revelry:
The blackbird and the speckled
Good-morrow gave from brake and bush;
In answer cooed the cushat
Her notes of peace and rest and love.
II.
No thought of peace, no thought of rest,
Assuaged the storm in Roderick's breast.
With sheathed broadsword in his hand,
Abrupt he paced the islet strand,
And eyed the rising sun, and
His hand on his impatient blade.
Beneath a rock, his vassals'
Was prompt the ritual to prepare,
With deep and deathful meaning fraught;
For such Antiquity had
Was preface meet, ere yet
The Cross of Fire should take its road.
The shrinking band stood oft
At the impatient glance he cast;—Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As, from the cliffs of Benvenue,
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And, high in middle heaven reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
Silenced the warblers of the brake.
IV.
A heap of withered boughs was piled,
Of juniper and rowan wild,
Mingled with shivers from the oak,
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.
Brian the Hermit by it stood,
Barefooted, in his frock and hood.
His grizzled beard and matted
Obscured a visage of despair;
His naked arms and legs, seamed o'er,
The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and
The impending danger of his
Had drawn from deepest
Far in Benharrow's bosom rude.
Not his the mien of Christian priest,
But Druid's, from the grave
Whose hardened heart and eye might
On human sacrifice to look;
And much, 't was said, of heathen
Mixed in the charms he muttered o'er.
The hallowed creed gave only
And deadlier emphasis of curse.
No peasant sought that Hermit's
His cave the pilgrim shunned with care,
The eager huntsman knew his
And in mid chase called off his hound;'Or if, in lonely glen or strath,
The desert-dweller met his
He prayed, and signed the cross between,
While terror took devotion's mien.
V.
Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.
His mother watched a midnight fold,
Built deep within a dreary glen,
Where scattered lay the bones of
In some forgotten battle slain,
And bleached by drifting wind and rain.
It might have tamed a warrior's
To view such mockery of his art!
The knot-grass fettered there the
Which once could burst an iron band;
Beneath the broad and ample bone,
That bucklered heart to fear unknown,
A feeble and a timorous guest,
The fieldfare framed her lowly nest;
There the slow blindworm left his
On the fleet limbs that mocked at time;
And there, too, lay the leader's
Still wreathed with chaplet, flushed and full,
For heath-bell with her purple
Supplied the bonnet and the plume.
All night, in this sad glen the
Sat shrouded in her mantle's shade:
She said no shepherd sought her side,
No hunter's hand her snood untied.
Yet ne'er again to braid her
The virgin snood did Alive wear;
Gone was her maiden glee and sport,
Her maiden girdle all too short,
Nor sought she, from that fatal night,
Or holy church or blessed
But locked her secret in her breast,
And died in travail, unconfessed.
VI.
Alone, among his young compeers,
Was Brian from his infant years;
A moody and heart-broken boy,
Estranged from sympathy and
Bearing each taunt which careless
On his mysterious lineage flung.
Whole nights he spent by moonlight
To wood and stream his teal, to wail,
Till, frantic, he as truth
What of his birth the crowd believed,
And sought, in mist and meteor fire,
To meet and know his Phantom Sire!
In vain, to soothe his wayward fate,
The cloister oped her pitying gate;
In vain the learning of the
Unclasped the sable-lettered page;
Even in its treasures he could
Food for the fever of his mind.
Eager he read whatever
Of magic, cabala, and spells,
And every dark pursuit
To curious and presumptuous pride;
Till with fired brain and nerves o'erstrung,
And heart with mystic horrors wrung,
Desperate he sought Benharrow's den,
And hid him from the haunts of men.
II.
The desert gave him visions wild,
Such as might suit the spectre's child.
Where with black cliffs the torrents toil,
He watched the wheeling eddies boil,
Jill from their foam his dazzled
Beheld the River Demon rise:
The mountain mist took form and
Of noontide hag or goblin grim;
The midnight wind came wild and dread,
Swelled with the voices of the dead;
Far on the future
His eye beheld the ranks of death:
Thus the lone Seer, from mankind hurled,
Shaped forth a disembodied world.
One lingering sympathy of
Still bound him to the mortal kind;
The only parent he could
Of ancient Alpine's lineage came.
Late had he heard, in prophet's dream,
The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream;
Sounds, too, had come in midnight
Of charging steeds, careering
Along Benharrow's shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride;
The thunderbolt had split the pine,—All augured ill to Alpine's line.
He girt his loins, and came to
The signals of impending woe,
And now stood prompt to bless or ban,
As bade the Chieftain of his clan.
II.'T was all prepared;—and from the rockA goat, the patriarch of the flock,
Before the kindling pile was laid,
And pierced by Roderick's ready blade.
Patient the sickening victim
The life-blood ebb in crimson
Down his clogged beard and shaggy limb,
Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.
The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,
A slender crosslet framed with care,
A cubit's length in measure due;
The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach
Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave,
And, answering Lomond's breezes deep,
Soothe many a chieftain's endless sleep.
The Cross thus formed he held on high,
With wasted hand and haggard eye,
And strange and mingled feelings woke,
While his anathema he spoke:—IX.'Woe to the clansman who shall
This symbol of sepulchral yew,
Forgetful that its branches
Where weep the heavens their holiest dew On Alpine's dwelling low!
Deserter of his Chieftain's trust,
He ne'er shall mingle with their dust,
But, from his sires and kindred thrust,
Each clansman's execration just Shall doom him wrath and woe.'He paused; — the word the vassals took,
With forward step and fiery look,
On high their naked brands they shook,
Their clattering targets wildly strook; And first in murmur low,
Then like the billow in his course,
That far to seaward finds his source,
And flings to shore his mustered force,
Burst with loud roar their answer hoarse,'Woe to the traitor, woe!'Ben-an's gray scalp the accents knew,
The joyous wolf from covert drew,
The exulting eagle screamed afar,—They knew the voice of Alpine's war.
X.
The shout was hushed on lake and fell,
The Monk resumed his muttered spell:
Dismal and low its accents came,
The while he scathed the Cross with flame;
And the few words that reached the air,
Although the holiest name was there,
Had more of blasphemy than prayer.
But when he shook above the
Its kindled points, he spoke aloud:—'Woe to the wretch who fails to
At this dread sign the ready spear!
For, as the flames this symbol sear,
His home, the refuge of his fear, A kindred fate shall know;
Far o'er its roof the volumed
Clan-Alpine's vengeance shall proclaim,
While maids and matrons on his
Shall call down wretchedness and shame, And infamy and woe.'Then rose the cry of females,
As goshawk's whistle on the hill,
Denouncing misery and ill,
Mingled with childhood's babbling trill Of curses stammered slow;
Answering with imprecation dread,'Sunk be his home in embers red!
And cursed be the meanest
That o'er shall hide the houseless head We doom to want and woe!'A sharp and shrieking echo gave,
Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave!
And the gray pass where birches wave On Beala-nam-bo.
XI.
Then deeper paused the priest anew,
And hard his laboring breath he drew,
While, with set teeth and clenched hand,
And eyes that glowed like fiery brand,
He meditated curse more dread,
And deadlier, on the clansman's
Who, summoned to his chieftain's aid,
The signal saw and disobeyed.
The crosslet's points of sparkling
He quenched among the bubbling blood.
And, as again the sign he reared,
Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:'When flits this Cross from man to man,
Vich-Alpine's summons to his clan,
Burst be the ear that fails to heed!
Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!
May ravens tear the careless eyes,
Wolves make the coward heart their prize!
As sinks that blood-stream in the earth,
So may his heart's-blood drench his hearth!
As dies in hissing gore the spark,
Quench thou his light,
Destruction dark!
And be the grace to him denied,
Bought by this sign to all beside!
He ceased; no echo gave
The murmur of the deep Amen.
II.
Then Roderick with impatient
From Brian's hand the symbol took:'Speed,
Malise, speed' he said, and
The crosslet to his henchman brave.'The muster-place be Lanrick mead—Instant the time—-speed,
Malise, speed!'Like heath-bird, when the hawks pursue,
A barge across Loch Katrine flew:
High stood the henchman on the prow;
So rapidly the barge-mall row,
The bubbles, where they launched the boat,
Were all unbroken and afloat,
Dancing in foam and ripple still,
When it had neared the mainland hill;
And from the silver beach's
Still was the prow three fathom wide,
When lightly bounded to the
The messenger of blood and brand.
II.
Speed,
Malise, speed! the dun deer's
On fleeter foot was never tied.
Speed,
Malise, speed! such cause of
Thine active sinews never braced.
Bend 'gainst the steepy hill thy breast,
Burst down like torrent from its crest;
With short and springing footstep
The trembling bog and false morass;
Across the brook like roebuck 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 priest thou now thy flying
With rivals in the mountain race;
But danger, death, and warrior
Are in thy course—speed,
Malise, speed!
IV.
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 showed the sign, he named the place,
And, pressing forward like the wind,
Left clamor and surprise behind.
The fisherman forsook the strand,
The swarthy smith took dirk and brand;
With changed cheer, the mower
Left in the half-cut swath his scythe;
The herds without a keeper strayed,
The plough was in mid-furrow staved,
The falconer tossed his hawk away,
The hunter left the stag at hay;
Prompt at the signal of alarms,
Each son of Alpine rushed to arms;
So swept the tumult and
Along the margin of Achray.
Alas, thou lovely lake! that
Thy banks should echo sounds of fear!
The rocks, the bosky thickets,
So stilly on thy bosom deep,
The lark's blithe carol from the
Seems for the scene too gayly loud.
XV.
Speed,
Malise, speed!
The lake is past,
Duncraggan's huts appear at last,
And peep, like moss-grown rocks, half
Half hidden in the copse so green;
There mayst thou rest, thy labor done,
Their lord shall speed the signal on.—As stoops the hawk upon his prey,
The henchman shot him down the way.
What woful 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 torch's
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
The dismal coronach resound.
VI.
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, reappearing, From the rain-drops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering, To Duncan no morrow!
The hand of the reaper Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing, When blighting was nearest.
Fleet foot on the correi, Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray, How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and forever!
II.
See Stumah, who, the bier
His master's corpse with wonder eyed,
Poor Stumah! whom his least
Could send like lightning o'er the dew,
Bristles his crest, and points his ears,
As if some stranger step he hears.'T is not a mourner's muffled tread,
Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead,
But headlong haste or deadly
Urge the precipitate career.
All stand aghast:—unheeding all,
The henchman bursts into the hall;
Before the dead man's bier he stood,
Held forth the Cross besmeared with blood;'The muster-place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal! clansmen,
II.
Angus, the heir of Duncan's line,
Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign.
In haste the stripling to his side His father's dirk and broadsword tied;
But when he saw his mother's
Watch him in speechless agony,
Back to her opened arms he
Pressed on her lips a fond adieu,—'Alas' she sobbed,—'and yet be gone,
And speed thee forth, like Duncan's son!'One look he cast upon the bier,
Dashed from his eye the gathering tear,
Breathed deep to clear his laboring breast,
And tossed aloft his bonnet crest,
Then, like the high-bred colt when, freed,
First he essays his fire and speed,
He vanished, and o'er moor and
Sped forward with the Fiery Cross.
Suspended was the widow's
While yet his footsteps she could hear;
And when she marked the henchman's
Wet with unwonted sympathy,'Kinsman,' she said, 'his race is
That should have sped thine errand on.
The oak teas fallen?—the sapling bough Is
Duncraggan's shelter
Yet trust I well, his duty done,
The orphan's God will guard my son.—And you, in many a danger
At Duncan's hest your blades that drew,
To arms, and guard that orphan's head!
Let babes and women wail the dead.'Then weapon-clang and martial
Resounded through the funeral hall,
While from the walls the attendant
Snatched sword and targe with hurried hand;
And short and flitting
Glanced from the mourner's sunken eye,
As if the sounds to warrior
Might rouse her Duncan from his bier.
But faded soon that borrowed force;
Grief claimed his right, and tears their course.
IX.
Benledi saw the Cross of Fire,
It glanced like lightning up Strath-Ire.
O'er dale and hill the summons flew,
Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew;
The tear that gathered in his
He deft the mountain-breeze to dry;
Until, where Teith's young waters
Betwixt him and a wooded
That graced the sable strath with green,
The chapel of Saint Bride was seen.
Swoln was the stream, remote the bridge,
But Angus paused not on the edge;
Though the clerk waves danced dizzily,
Though reeled his sympathetic eye,
He dashed amid the torrent's roar:
His right hand high the crosslet bore,
His left the pole-axe grasped, to
And stay his footing in the tide.
He stumbled twice,—the foam splashed high,
With hoarser swell the stream raced by;
And had he fallen,—forever there,
Farewell Duncraggan's orphan heir!
But still, as if in parting life,
Firmer he grasped the Cross of strife,
Until the opposing bank he gained,
And up the chapel pathway strained.
A blithesome rout that
Had sought the chapel of Saint Bride.
Her troth Tombea's Mary
To Norman, heir of Armandave,
And, issuing from the Gothic arch,
The bridal now resumed their march.
In rude but glad procession
Bonneted sire and coif-clad dame;
And plaided youth, with jest and
Which snooded maiden would not hear:
And children, that, unwitting why,
Lent the gay shout their shrilly cry;
And minstrels, that in measures
Before the young and bonny bride,
Whose downcast eye and cheek
The tear and blush of morning rose.
With virgin step and bashful
She held the kerchief's snowy band.
The gallant bridegroom by her
Beheld his prize with victor's pride.
And the glad mother in her
Was closely whispering word of cheer.
XI.
Who meets them at the churchyard gate?
The messenger of fear and fate!
Haste in his hurried accent lies,
And grief is swimming in his eyes.
All dripping from the recent flood,
Panting and travel-soiled he stood,
The fatal sign of fire and
Held forth, and spoke the appointed word:'The muster-place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal!
Norman, speed!'And must he change so soon the
Just linked to his by holy band,
For the fell Cross of blood and brand?
And must the day so blithe that rose,
And promised rapture in the close,
Before its setting hour,
The bridegroom from the plighted bride?
O fatal doom'—it must! it must!
Clan-Alpine's cause, her Chieftain's trust,
Her summons dread, brook no delay;
Stretch to the race,—away! away!
II.
Yet slow he laid his plaid aside,
And lingering eyed his lovely bride,
Until he saw the starting
Speak woe he might not stop to cheer:
Then, trusting not a second look,
In haste he sped hind up the brook,
Nor backward glanced till on the
Where Lubnaig's lake supplies the Teith,—What in the racer's bosom stirred?
The sickening pang of hope deferred,
And memory with a torturing
Of all his morning visions vain.
Mingled with love's impatience,
The manly thirst for martial fame;
The stormy joy of
Ere yet they rush upon the spears;
And zeal for Clan and Chieftain burning,
And hope, from well-fought field returning,
With war's red honors on his crest,
To clasp his Mary to his breast.
Stung by such thoughts, o'er bank and brae,
Like fire from flint he glanced away,
While high resolve and feeling
Burst into voluntary song.
II.
Song.
The heath this night must be my bed,
The bracken curtain for my head,
My lullaby the warder's tread, Far, far, from love and thee,
Mary;
To-morrow eve, more stilly laid,
My couch may be my bloody plaid,
My vesper song thy wail, sweet maid! It will not waken me,
Mary!
I may not, dare not, fancy
The grief that clouds thy lovely brow,
I dare not think upon thy vow, And all it promised me,
Mary.
No fond regret must Norman know;
When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,
His heart must be like bended bow, His foot like arrow free,
Mary.
A time will come with feeling fraught,
For, if I fall in battle fought,
Thy hapless lover's dying thought Shall be a thought on thee,
Mary.
And if returned from conquered foes,
How blithely will the evening close,
How sweet the linnet sing repose, To my young bride and me,
Mary!
IV.
Not faster o'er thy heathery
Balquidder, speeds the midnight blaze,
Rushing in conflagration
Thy deep ravines and dells along,
Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow,
And reddening the dark lakes below;
Nor faster speeds it, nor so far,
As o'er thy heaths the voice of war.
The signal roused to martial
The sullen margin of Loch Voil,
Waked still Loch Doine, and to the
Alarmed,
Balvaig, thy swampy course;
Thence southward turned its rapid
Adown Strath-Gartney's valley
Till rose in arms each man might claimA portion in Clan-Alpine's name,
From the gray sire, whose trembling
Could hardly buckle on his brand,
To the raw boy, whose shaft and
Were yet scarce terror to the crow.
Each valley, each sequestered glen,
Mustered its little horde of
That met as torrents from the
In Highland dales their streams
Still gathering, as they pour along,
A voice more loud, a tide more strong,
Till at the rendezvous they
By hundreds prompt for blows and blood,
Each trained to arms since life began,
Owning no tie but to his clan,
No oath but by his chieftain's hand,
No law but Roderick Dhu's command.
XV.
That summer morn had Roderick
Surveyed the skirts of Benvenue,
And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath,
To view the frontiers of Menteith.
All backward came with news of truce;
Still lay each martial Graeme and Bruce,
In Rednock courts no horsemen wait,
No banner waved on Cardross gate,
On Duchray's towers no beacon shone,
Nor scared the herons from Loch Con;
All seemed at peace.—Now wot ye
The Chieftain with such anxious eye,
Ere to the muster he repair,
This western frontier scanned with care?—In Benvenue's most darksome cleft,
A fair though cruel pledge was left;
For Douglas, to his promise true,
That morning from the isle withdrew,
And in a deep sequestered
Had sought a low and lonely cell.
By many a bard in Celtic
Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sungA softer name the Saxons gave,
And called the grot the Goblin Cave.
VI.
It was a wild and strange retreat,
As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet.
The dell, upon the mountain's crest,
Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast;
Its trench had stayed full many a rock,
Hurled by primeval earthquake
From Benvenue's gray summit wild,
And here, in random ruin piled,
They frowned incumbent o'er the
And formed the rugged sylvan "rot.
The oak and birch with mingled
At noontide there a twilight made,
Unless when short and sudden
Some straggling beam on cliff or stone,
With such a glimpse as prophet's
Gains on thy depth,
Futurity.
No murmur waked the solemn still,
Save tinkling of a fountain rill;
But when the wind chafed with the lake,
A sullen sound would upward break,
With dashing hollow voice, that
The incessant war of wave and rock.
Suspended cliffs with hideous
Seemed nodding o'er the cavern gray.
From such a den the wolf had sprung,
In such the wild-cat leaves her young;
Yet Douglas and his daughter
Sought for a space their safety there.
Gray Superstition's whisper
Debarred the spot to vulgar tread;
For there, she said, did fays resort,
And satyrs hold their sylvan court,
By moonlight tread their mystic mze,
And blast the rash beholder's gaze.
II.
Now eve, with western shadows long,
Floated on Katrine bright and strong,
When Roderick with a chosen
Repassed the heights of Benvenue.
Above the Goblin Cave they go,
Through the wild pass of Beal-nam-bo;
The prompt retainers speed before,
To launch the shallop from the shore,
For 'cross Loch Katrine lies his
To view the passes of Achray,
And place his clansmen in array.
Yet lags the Chief in musing mind,
Unwonted sight, his men behind.
A single page, to bear his sword,
Alone attended on his lord;
The rest their way through thickets break,
And soon await him by the lake.
It was a fair and gallant
To view them from the neighboring height,
By the low-levelled sunbeam's light!
For strength and stature, from the
Each warrior was a chosen man,
As even afar might well be seen,
By their proud step and martial feathers dance, their tartars float,
Their targets gleam, as by the boatA wild and warlike group they stand,
That well became such mountain-strand.
VI.
Their Chief with step reluctant
Was lingering on the craggy hill,
Hard by where turned apart the
To Douglas's obscure abode.
It was but with that dawning
That Roderick Dhu had proudly
To drown his love in war's wild roar,
Nor think of Ellen Douglas more;
But he who stems a stream with sand,
And fetters flame with flaxen band,
Has yet a harder task to prove,—By firm resolve to conquer love!
Eve finds the Chief, like restless ghost,
Still hovering near his treasure lost;
For though his haughty heart denyA parting meeting to his
Still fondly strains his anxious
The accents of her voice to hear,
And inly did he curse the
That waked to sound the rustling trees.
But hark! what mingles in the strain?
It is the harp of Allan-bane,
That wakes its measure slow and high,
Attuned to sacred minstrelsy.
What melting voice attends the strings?'Tis Ellen, or an angel, sings.
IX.
Hymn to the Virgin.
Ave.
Maria! maiden mild! Listen to a maiden's prayer!
Thou canst hear though from the wild, Thou canst save amid despair.
Safe may we sleep beneath thy care, Though banished, outcast, and reviled—Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer; Mother, hear a suppliant child! Ave Maria!
Ave Maria! undefiled! The flinty couch we now must
Shall seem with down of eider piled, If thy protection hover there.
The murky cavern's heavy air Shall breathe of balm if thou hast smiled;
Then,
Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer, Mother, list a suppliant child! Ave Maria!
Ave.
Maria! stainless styled! Foul demons of the earth and air,
From this their wonted haunt exiled, Shall flee before thy presence fair.
We bow us to our lot of care, Beneath thy guidance reconciled:
Hear for a maid a maiden's prayer, And for a father hear a child! Ave Maria!
XX.
Died on the harp the closing hymn,—Unmoved in attitude and limb,
As listening still,
Clan-Alpine's
Stood leaning on his heavy sword,
Until the page with humble
Twice pointed to the sun's decline.
Then while his plaid he round him cast,'It is the last time—'tis the last,'He muttered thrice,—'the last time
That angel-voice shall Roderick hear''It was a goading thought,—his
Hied hastier down the mountain-side;
Sullen he flung him in the
An instant 'cross the lake it shot.
They landed in that silvery bay,
And eastward held their hasty
Till, with the latest beams of light,
The band arrived on Lanrick height'Where mustered in the vale
Clan-Alpine's men in martial show.
XI.
A various scene the clansmen made:
Some sat, some stood, some slowly strayer):
But most, with mantles folded round,
Were couched to rest upon the ground,
Scarce to be known by curious
From the deep heather where they lie,
So well was matched the tartan
With heath-bell dark and brackens green;
Unless where, here and there, a
Or lance's point a glimmer made,
Like glow-worm twinkling through the shade.
But when, advancing through the gloom,
They saw the Chieftain's eagle plume,
Their shout of welcome, shrill and wide,
Shook the steep mountain's steady side.
Thrice it arose, and lake and
Three times returned the martial yell;
It died upon Bochastle's plain,
And Silence claimed her evening reign.(stanza I:
The Fiery Cross glanced like a meteor round...):
When a chieftain designed to summon his clan, upon any sudden or important emergency, he slew a goat, and making a cross of any light wood, scared its extremities in the fire, and extinguished them in the blood of the animal.
This was called the Fiery Cross, also Crean Tarigh, or the Cross of Shame, because disobedience to what the symbol implied, inferred infamy.
It was delivered to a swift and trusty messenger, who ran full speed with it to the next hamlet, where he presented it to the principal person, with a single word, implying the place of rendezvous.
He who received the symbol was bound to send it forward, with equal despatch, to the next village; and thus it passed with incredible celerity through all the district which owed allegiance to the chief, and also among his allies and neighbours, if the danger was common to them.
At sight of the Fiery Cross, every man, from sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best arms and accoutrements, to the place of rendezvous.
He who failed to appear suffered the extremities of fire and sword, which were emblematically denounced to the disobedient by the bloody and burnt marks upon this warlike signal.
During the civil war of 1745-6, the Fiery Cross often made its circuit; and upon one occasion it passed through the whole district of Breadalbane, a tract of thirty-two miles, in three hours.(stanza IV:
That Monk of savage form and face...):
The state of religion in the middle ages afforded considerable facilities for those whose mode of life excluded them from regular worship, to secure, nevertheless, the ghostly assistance of confessors, perfectly willing to adapt the nature of their doctrine to the necessities and peculiar circumstances of their flock.
Robin Hood, it is well known, had his celebrated domestic chaplain Friar Tuck.
And that same curtail friar was probably matched in manners and appearance by the ghostly fathers of the Tynedale robbers, who are thus described in an excommunication fulminated against their patrons by Richard Fox,
Bishop of Durham, tempre Henrici
II. "We have further understood, that there are many chaplains in the said territories of Tynedale and Redesdale, who are public and open maintainers of concubinage, irregular, suspended, excommunicated, and interdicted persons, and withal so utterly ignorant of letters, that it has been found by those who objected this to them, that there were some who, having celebrated mass for ten years, were still unable to read the sacramental service.
We have also understood there are persons among them who, although not ordained, do take upon them the offices of priesthood; and, in contempt of God, celebrate the divine and sacred rites, and administer the sacraments, not only in sacred and dedicated places, but in those which are profane and interdicted, and most wretchedly ruinous; they themselves being attired in ragged, torn, and most filthy vestments, altogether unfit to be used in divine or even in temporal offices."&c. (stanza V:
Yet ne'er again to braid her hair,
The virgin snood did Alice wear............):
The snood, or ribbon, with which a Scottish lass braided her hair, had an emblematical signification, and applied to her maiden character.
It was exchanged for the curch, toy, or coif, when she passed, by marriage, into the matron state.
But if the damsel was so unfortunate as to lose pretensions to the name of maiden, without gaining a right to that of matron, she was neither permitted to use the snood, nor advanced to the graver dignity of the curch. (stanza
II:
The desert gave him visions
Such as might suit the spectre's child.......):
It was a natural attribute of such a character as the supposed hermit, that he should credit the numerous superstitions with which the minds of ordinary Highlanders are almost always embued.
A few of these are slightly alluded to in this stanza The River Demon, or River-horse, for it is that form which he commonly assumes, is the Kelpy of the Lowlands, an evil and malicious spirit, delighting to forebode and to witness calamity.
He frequents most Highland lakes and rivers; and one of his most memorable exploits was performed upon the banks of Loch-Vennachar, in the very district which forms the scene of our action: it consisted in the destruction of a funeral procession, with all its attendants.
The "noontide hag," called in Gaelic Glas-lich, a tall, emaciated, gigantic female figure, is supposed in particular to haunt the district of Knoidart.
A goblin dressed in antique armour, and having one hand covered with blood, called, from that circumstance,
Lham-dearg, or Red-hand, is a tenant of the forests of Glenmore and Rothemurcus.
Other spirits of the desert, all frightful in shape, and malignant in disposition, are believed to frequent different mountains and glens of the Highlands, where any unusual appearance, produced by mist or the strange lights that are sometimes thrown upon particular objects, never fails to present an apparition to the imagination of the solitary and melancholy mountaineer.(stanza
II:
The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream......):
Most great families in the Highlands were supposed to have a tutelar or rather a domestic spirit, attached to them, who took an interest in their prosperity, and intimated, by its wailings, any approaching disaster.
That of Grant of Grant was called May Moullach, and appeared in the form of a girl, who had her arm covered with hair.
Grant Rothemurcus had an attendant called Bodach-an-dun, or the Ghost of the Hill: and many other examples might be mentioned.
The Ban-Shie implies the female Fairy, whose lamentations were often supposed to precede the death of a chieftain of particular families.
When she is visible, it is in the form of an old woman, with a blue mantle, and streaming hair.
A superstition of the same kind is,
I believe, universally received by the inferior ranks of the native Irish.(stanza
II:
Along Benharrow's shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride.......):
A presage of the kind alluded to in the text, is still believed to announce death to the ancient Highland family of
Lean of Lochbuy.
The spirit of an ancestor slain in battle is heard to gallop along a stony bank, and then to ride thrice around the family residence, ringing his fairy bridle, and thus intimating the approaching calamity.
How easily the eye as well as the ear may be deceived upon such occasions, is evident from the stories of armies in the air, and other spectral phenomena, with which history abounds.
Such an apparition is said to have been witnessed upon the side of Southerfell mountain, between Penrith and Keswick, upon the 23d June, 1744, by two persons,
William Lancaster of Blakehills, and Daniel Stricket, his servant, whose attestation to the fact, with a full account of the apparition, dated the 21st July, 1785, is printed in Clarke's Survey of the Lakes.
The apparition consisted of several troops of horse moving in regular order, with a steady rapid motion, making a curved sweep around the fell, and seeming to the spectators to disappear over the ridge of the mountain.
Many persons witnessed this phenomenon, and observed at last, or last but one, of the supposed troop, occasionally leave his rank, and pass, at a gallop, to the front, when he resumed the same steady pace. (stanza
II.
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach
Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave...........):
Inch-Cailliach, the Isle of Nuns, or of Old Women, is a most beautiful island at the lower extremity of Loch-Lomond.
The church belonging to the former nunnery was long used as the place of worship for the parish of Buchanan, but scarcely any vestiges of it now remain.
The burial ground continues to be used, and contains the family places of sepulture of several neighbouring clans.
The monuments of the lairds of
Gregor, and of other families, claiming a descent from the old Scottish King Alpine, are most remarkable. (stanza
II: ---- The dun deer's
On the fleeter foot was never tied...):
The present brogue of the Highlanders is made of half-dried leather, with holes to admit and let out the water; for walking the moors dry-shod is a matter altogether out of question.
The ancient buskin was still ruder, being made of undressed deer's hide, with the hair outwards, a circumstance which procured the Highlanders the well-known epithet of Red-shanks. (stanza XV:
The dismal Coronach....):
The Coronach of the Highlanders, like the Ululatus of the Romans, and the Ululoo of the Irish, was a wild expression of lamentation poured forth by the mourners over the body of a departed friend.
When the words of it were articulate, they expressed the praises of the deceased, and the loss the clan would sustain by his death.
The Coronach has for some years past been superseded at funerals by the use of the bagpipe, and that also is, like many other Highland peculiarities, falling into disuse, unless in remote districts.(stanza
IV:
Not faster o'er thy heathery braes,
Balquidder, speeds the midnight blaze......):
The heath on the Scottish moor-lands is often set fire to, that the sheep may have the advantage of the young herbage produced in room of the tough old heather plants.
This custom (execrated by sportsmen) produces occasionally the most beautiful nocturnal appearances, similar almost to the discharge of a volcano.
The simile is not new to poetry.
The charge of a warrior, in the fine ballad of Hardyknute, is said to be "like a fire to heather set."(stanza
IV: ----- Coir-nan-Uriskin...):
This is a very steep and most romantic hollow in the mountain of Ben-venue, overhanging the south-eastern extremity of Loch-Katrine.
It is surrounded with stupendous rocks, and overshadowed with birch-trees, mingled with oaks, the spontaneous production of the mountain, even where its cliffs appear denuded of soil.
A dale in so wild a situation, and amid a people whose genius bordered on the romantic, did not remain without appropriate deities.
The name literally implies the Corri, or Den of the Wild or Shaggy Men.
Perhaps this,... may have originally only implied its being the haunt of a ferocious banditti.
But tradition has ascribed to the Urisk, who gives name to the cavern, a figure between a goat and a man.(stanza
VI:
The wild pass of Beal'-nam-Bo....):
Bealach-nam-Bo, or the pass of cattle, is a most magnificent glade, overhung with aged birch-trees, a little higher up the mountain than the Coir-nan-Uriskin, treated of in the last note.
The whole composes the most sublime piece of scenery that imagination can conceive.(stanza
VI:
A single page to bear his sword,
Alone attended on his Lord...........):
A Highland chief being as absolute in his patriarchal authority as any prince, had a corresponding number of officers attached to his person.
He had his body-guards, called Luicht-tach, picked from his clan for strength, activity, and entire devotion to his person.'~ Select Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, vol. 3, pb. 1838.
