skin, sirs,

Bedeck your Saracen ;

He 'll freeze without what warms our hearts within, sirs,

Till rock and water rang aroundThree score of moss-troopers and three Have mounted at that bugle sound.

He rode him down by Falschope burn,
His cousin dear to see,
With him to take a riding turn-

Wat-draw-the-sword was he.

And when he came to Falsehope glen, Beneath the trysting-tree,

On the smooth green was carved plain,

'To Lochwood bound are we.'

'O if they be gane to dark Lochwood To drive the Warden's gear, Betwixt our names, I ween, there's feud;

I'll go and have my share:

'For little reck I for Johnstone's feud,
The Warden though he be.'
So Lord William is away to dark
Lochwood,

With riders barely three.

The Warden's daughters in Lochwood sate,

Were all both fair and gay, All save the Lady Margaret, And she was wan and wae.

The sister, Jean, had a full fair skin,

And Grace was bauld and braw; But the leal-fast heart her breast within It weel was worth them a'.

Her father's pranked her sisters twa
With meikle joy and pride;
But Margaret maun seek Dundrennan's
wa'-

She ne'er can be a bride.

On spear and casque by gallants gent

Her sisters' scarfs were borne, But never at tilt or tournament

Were Margaret's colours worn.

Her sisters rode to Thirlstane bower,

But she was left at hame To wander round the gloomy tower, And sigh young Harden's name.

'Of all the knights, the knight most fair,

From Yarrow to the Tyne,' Soft sigh'd the maid, 'is Harden's heir, But ne'er can he be mine;

'Of all the maids, the foulest maid, From Teviot to the Dee,

Ah!' sighing sad, that lady said,

'Can ne'er young Harden's be.'
She looked up the briery glen,
And up the mossy brae,
And she saw a score of her father's men
Yclad in the Johnstone grey.

O fast and fast they downwards sped
The moss and briers among,
And in the midst the troopers led
A shackled knight along.

WAR-SONG OF THE ROYAL EDINBURGH LIGHT DRAGOONS. (1802.)

To horse! to horse! the standard flies,
The bugles sound the call;
The Gallic navy stems the seas,
The voice of battle's on the breeze,
Arouse ye, one and all!

From high Dunedin's towers we come,
A band of brothers true;
Our casques the leopard's spoils sur-
round,

With Scotland's hardy thistle crown'd;
We boast the red and blue1.

Though tamely crouch to Gallia's frown
Dull Holland's tardy train;
Their ravish'd toys though Romans

Oh had they mark'd the avenging call 1

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.
In Freedom's temple born,
Dress our pale cheek in timid smile,
To hail a master in our isle,

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,

Or plunder's bloody gain; Unbribed, unbought, our swords we draw,

To guard our king, to fence our law, Nor shall their edge be vain.

If ever breath of British gale
Shall fan the tri-color,
Or footstep of invader rude,
With rapine foul, and red with blood,
Pollute our happy shore,-

Then farewell home! and farewell friends!

Adieu each tender tie! Resolved, we mingle in the tide, Where charging squadrons furious ride,

To conquer or to die.

1 The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss Guards, on the fatal 10th 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, encouraged 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. [1812]

The Spectre with his Bloody Hand

Is wandering through the wild wood

land;

The wind is hush'd, and still the lakeStrange murmurs fill my tinkling cars,

dread,

And the time is meet to awake the dead!

'Souls of the mighty, wake and say, To what high strain your harps

were strung, When Lochlin plow'd her billowy way, And on your shores her Norsemen flung?

Her Norsemen train'd to spoil and blood,

Skill'd to prepare the Raven's food, All, by your harpings, doom'd to die On bloody Largs and Loncarty. 'Mute are ye all? No murmurs strange Upon the midnight breeze sail by; Nor through the pines, with whistling change

Mimic the harp's wild harmony! Mute are ye now? Yene'er were mute, When Murder with his bloody foot, And Rapine with his iron hand, Were hovering near yon mountain strand.

'O yet awake the strain to tell,
By every deed in song enroll'd,
By every chief who fought or fell,
For Albion's weal in battle bold:
From Coilgach', first who roll'd his car
Through the deep ranks of Roman war,
To him, of veteran memory dear.
Who victor died on Aboukir.

'By all their swords, by all their scars,
By all their names, a mighty spell!
By all their wounds, by all their wars,
Arise, the mighty strain to tell!
For fiercer than fierce Hengist's strain,

At the dread voice of other years: 'When targets clash'd, and bugles rung,

And blades round warriors heads
The foremost of the band were we,
were flung,
And hymn'd the joys of Liberty!'

HELLVELLYN.

(1805.)

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.

On the right, Striden-edge round the
Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was
defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I mark'd the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather,

Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay

stretch'd in decay, Like the corpse of an outcast abandon'd

to weather,

Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay.

1 The Galgacus of Tacitus.

extended,

For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,

raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?

When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?

How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,

Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?

And, oh, was it meet, that-no requiem read o'er him

No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,

And thou, little guardian, alone stretch'd before himUnhonour'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 hall;

With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming; In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beaming,

Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,

Lamenting a Chief of the people should fall.

flying,

With one faithful friend but to witness

thy dying,

In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

THE DYING BARD.
(1806.)

DINAS EMLINN, lament; for the moment is nigh,

When mute in the woodlands thine echoes shall die:

No more by sweet Teivi Cadwallon shall rave,

And mix his wild notes with the wild dashing wave.

In spring and in autumn thy glories

of shade

Unhonour'd shall flourish, unhonour'd shall fade;

For soon shall be lifeless the eye and the tongue,

That view'd them with rapture, with rapture that sung.

Thy sons, Dinas Emlinn, may march in their pride,

And chase the proud Saxon from Prestatyn's side;

But where is the harp shall give life to their name?

And where is the bard shall give heroes their fame?

so fair,

mountain lamb,

wave the dark hair;

cliff huge in stature,

of his dam.