'O! could I point a place of rest!
My sovereign holds in ward my land,
My uncle leads my vassal band;
To tame his foes, his friends to aid,
Poor Malcolm has but heart and blade.
Yet, if there be one faithful Græme
Who loves the Chieftain of his name,
Not long shall honour'd Douglas dwell,
Like hunted stag, in mountain cell;
Nor, ere yon pride-swoll'n robber
dare--
I may not give the rest to air!
Wait on the verge of dark eternity, Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse,
To sweep them from our sight! Time rolls his ceaseless course.
Yet live there still who can remember well,
How, when a mountain chief his bugle blew,
Tell Roderick Dhu, I owed him Both field and forest, dingle, cliff, and
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy,
Trembled but dimpled not for joy;
The mountain-shadows on her breast
Were neither broken nor at rest;
In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the light
Her chalice rear'd of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemm'd with dew-drops, led her
fawn;
The grey mist left the mountain side,
The torrent show'dits glistening pride;
Invisible in flecked sky,
The lark sent down her revelry;
The blackbird and the speckled thrush
Good-morrow gave from brake and
bush;
In answer coo'd the cushat dove
Her notes of peace, and rest, and love.
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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 laid
His hand on his impatient blade.
Beneath a rock, his vassals' care
Was prompt the ritual to prepare,
With deep and deathful meaning
fraught;
For such Antiquity had taught
Was preface meet, ere yet abroad
The Cross of Fire should take its road.
The shrinking band stood oft aghast
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,
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 grisled beard and matted hair
Obscured a visage of despair;
His naked arms and legs, seam'd o'er,
The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and face,
The impending danger of his race
Had drawn from deepest solitude,
Far in Benharrow's bosom rude.
Not his the mien of Christian priest,
But Druid's, from the grave released,
Whose harden'd heart and eye might
brook
On human sacrifice to look ;
And much, 'twas said, of heathen lore
Mix'd in the charms he mutter'd o'er.
The hallow'd creed gave only worse
And deadlier emphasis of curse;
No peasant sought that Hermit's
prayer,
His cave the pilgrim shunn'd with care,
The eager huntsman knew his bound,
And in mid chase call'd off his hound;
Or if, in lonely glen or strath,
The desert-dweller met his path,
He pray'd, and sign'd the cross
between,
While terror took devotion's mien.
Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.
His mother watch'd a midnight fold,
Built deep within a dreary glen,
Where scatter'd lay the bones of men,
In some forgotten battle slain,
And bleach'dby drifting wind and rain.
It might have tamed a warrior's heart,
To view such mockery of his art!
The knot-grass fetter'd there the hand
Which once could burst an iron band;
Beneath the broad and ample bone,
That buckler'd heart to fear unknown,
A heap of wither'd boughs was piled, A feeble and a timorous guest,
Of juniper and rowan wild,
The field-fare framed her lowly nest;
There the slow blind-worm left his Till with fired brain and nerves o'er
On the fleet limbs that mock'd at time; And there, too, lay the leader's skull, Still wreathed with chaplet, flush'd and full,
For heath-bell with her purple bloom
Supplied the bonnet and the plume.
All night, in this sad glen, the maid
Sate, 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 hair
The virgin snood did Alice 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 rite,
But lock'd her secret in her breast,
And died in travail, unconfess'd.
Alone, among his young compeers,
Was Brian from his infant years;
A moody and heart-broken boy,
Estranged from sympathy and joy,
Bearing each taunt which careless
tongue
On his mysterious lineage flung. Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale,
To wood and stream his hap to wail,
Till, frantic, he as truth received
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 age
Unclasp'd the sable-letter'd page;
Even in its treasures he could find
Food for the fever of his mind.
Eager he read whatever tells
Of magic, cabala, and spells,
And every dark pursuit allied
To curious and presumptuous pride;
And heart with mystic horrors wrung, Desperate he sought Benharrow's den,
And hid him from the haunts of men.
The desert gave him visions wild,
Such as might suit the spectre's child.
Where with black cliffs the torrents
toil,
He watch'd the wheeling eddies boil,
Till, from their foam, his dazzled eyes
Beheld the River Demon rise;
The mountain mist took form and limb,
Of noontide hag, or goblin grim ;
The midnight wind came wild and
dread,
Swell'd with the voices of the dead;
Far on the future battle-heath
His eye beheld the ranks of death: Thus the lone Seer, from mankind hurl'd,
Shaped forth a disembodied world.
One lingering sympathy of mind
Still bound him to the mortal kind;
The only parent he could claim
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
blast,
Of charging steeds, careering fast
Along Benharrow's shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne'er might
The thunderbolt had split the pine;
All augur'd ill to Alpine's line.
He girt his loins, and came to show
The signals of impending woe,
And now stood prompt to bless or ban,
As bade the Chieftain of his clan.
'Twas all prepared; and from the rock. A goat, the patriarch of the flock,
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 muster'd force, Burst, with loud roar, their answer hoarse,
"Woe to the traitor, woe!'
Ben-an's grey scalp the accents knew, The joyous wolf from covert drew, The exulting eagle scream'd afar,— They knew the voice of Alpine's war.
The shout was hush'd on lake and fell,
The monk resumed his mutter'd spell:
Dismal and low its accents came,
The while he scathed the Cross with
flame;
And the few words that reach'd the air,
Although the holiest name was there,
Had more of blasphemy than prayer.
But when he shook above the crowd
Its kindled points, he spoke aloud:
'Woe to the wretch who fails to rear
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 flame
Clan-Alpine's vengeance shall pro-
claim,
While maids and matrons on his name
Shall call down wretchedness and shame,
And infamy and woe.'
Then rose the cry of females, shrill
As goss-hawk's whistle on the hill,
Denouncing misery and ill,
Mingled with childhood's babbling trill
Of curses stammer'd slow;
Answering, with imprecation dread,
'Sunk be his home in embers red!
And cursed be the meanest shed
That e'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 grey pass where birches wave On Beala-nam-bo.
Then deeper paused the priest anew, ¡And hard his labouring breath he drew,
While, with set teeth and clenched Dancing in foam and ripple still,
And eyes that glow'd like fiery brand,
He meditated curse more dread,
And deadlier, on the clansman's head,
Who, summon'd to his Chieftain's aid,
The signal saw and disobey'd.
The crosslet's points of sparkling wood,
When it had near'd the mainland hill;
And from the silver beach's side
Still was the prow three fathom wide,
When lightly bounded to the land
The messenger of blood and brand.
He quenched among the bubbling Speed, Malise, speed! the dun deer's
And, as again the sign he rear'd, Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard: 'When flits this Cross from man to
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 hislight, Destruction dark,
And be the grace to him denied,
Bought by this sign to all beside!'
He ceased; no echo gave agen
The murmur of the deep Amen.
Then Roderick, with impatient look, From Brian's hand the symbol took : 'Speed, Malise, speed!' he said, and gave
The crosslet to his henchman brave. The muster-place be Lanrick meadInstant 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-men row,
On fleeter foot was never tied. Speed, Malise, speed! such cause of haste
Thine active sinews never braced. Bend 'gainst the steepy hill thy breast,
Burst down like torrent from its crest; With short and springing footstep pass 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: Parch'd 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 pliest thou now thy flying pace, With rivals in the mountain race: But danger, death, and warrior deed, Are in thy course; speed, Malise, speed!
Fast as the fatal symbol flies,
In arms the huts and hamlets rise;
From winding glen, from upland
brown,
They pour'd each hardy tenant down.
The bubbles, where they launch'd the Nor slack'd the messenger his pace;
Were all unbroken and afloat,
He show'd the sign, he named the
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