LINES BY CAPTAIN WAVERLEY

ON RECEIVING HIS COMMISSION IN
COLONEL GARDINER'S REGIMENT.

LATE, when the autumn evening fell
On Mirkwood-Mere's romantic dell,
The lake return'd, in chasten'd gleam,
The purple cloud, the golden beam:
Reflected in the crystal pool,
Headland and bank lay fair and cool;
The weather-tinted rock and tower,
Each drooping tree, each fairy flower,
So true, so soft, the mirror gave,
As if there lay beneath the wave,
Secure from trouble, toil, and care,
A world than earthly world more fair.

But distant winds began to wake,
And roused the Genius of the Lake!
He heard the groaning of the oak,
And donn'd at once his sable cloak,
As warrior, at the battle cry,
Invests him with his panoply:
Then, as the whirlwind nearer press'd,
He 'gan to shake his foamy crest
O'er furrow'd brow and blacken'd
cheek,

And bade his surge in thunder speak.
In wild and broken eddies whirl'd,
Flitted that fond ideal world;
And, to the shore in tumult tost,
The realms of fairy bliss were lost.

Yet, with a stern delight and strange,
I saw the spirit-stirring change.
As warr'd the wind with wave and
wood,

Upon the ruin'd tower I stood,
And felt my heart more strongly bound,
Responsive to the lofty sound,
While, joying in the mighty roar,
I mourn'd that tranquil scene no more.

So, on the idle dreams of youth
Breaks the loud trumpet-call of truth,
Bids each fair vision pass away,
Like landscape on the lake that lay,

As fair, as flitting, and as frail,
As that which fled the autumn gale--
For ever dead to fancy's eye
Be each gay form that glided by,
While dreams of love and lady's charms
Give place to honour and to arms!
Chap. v.

DAVIE GELLATLEY sings:FALSE love, and hast thou play'd me this

In summer among the flowers? I will repay thee back again

In winter among the showers.
Unless again, again, my love,

Unless you turn again;
As you with other maidens rove,
I'll smile on other men.

THE Knight's to the mountain
His bugle to wind;
The Lady's to greenwood

Her garland to bind.
The bower of Burd Ellen

Has moss on the floor, That the step of Lord William Be silent and sure.

Chap. IX.

SCENE-Luckie Macleary's Tavern. BARON BRADWARDINE sings:MON cœur volage, dit-elle,

N'est pas pour vous, garçon;
Mais pour un homme de guerre,
Qui a barbe au menton.
Lon, Lon, Laridon.

Qui porte chapeau à plume,
Soulier à rouge talon,
Qui joue de la flûte,

Aussi du violon.

Lon, Lon, Laridon.

BALMAWHAPPLE sings :-

Ir's up Glenbarchan's braes I gaed, And o'er the bent of Killiebraid, And mony a weary cast I made,

To cuittle the moor-fowl's tail.

If up a bonny black-cock should spring, To whistle him down wi' a slug in his wing,

Right seldom would I fail.

ye to rest,

bold,

When his naked foot traced the mid

night wold,

When he stopp'd the Hag as she rode

the night,

And bade her descend, and her promise plight.

He that dare sit on Saint Swithin's Chair,

When the Night-Hag wings the troubled air,

Questions three, when he speaks the spell,

He may ask, and she must tell.

The Baron has been with King Robert

his liege,

These three long years, in battle and

siege;

News are there none of his weal or

his woc,

And fain the Lady his fate would know.

bless'd;

Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead, Sing the Ave, and say the Crced.

she speaks;

Is it the moody owl that shrieks?
Or is that sound, betwixt laughter and

scream,

The dirk and the target lie sordid with dust,

The calm was more dreadful than

raging storm,

and more fast;

their verse!

every tone,

his wing.

The young man's wrath is like light straw on fire;

Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?

But like red-hot steel is the old man's ire,

And the throstle-cock's head is under

his wing.

The young man will brawl at the evening board;

Heard ye so merry the little bird sing? But the old man will draw at the dawning the sword,

In the blush of the dawning the STANDARD uprear!

his wing.

Chap. XIV.

FLORA MACIVOR'S SONG.

THERE is mist on the mountain, and night on the vale,

But more dark is the sleep of the sons of the Gael.

A stranger commanded-it sunk on the land,

It has frozen each heart, and benumb'd every hand!

let it fly,

Like the sun's latest flash when the

tempest is nigh!

Ye sons of the strong, when that dawning shall break,

Need the harp of the aged remind you to wake?

That dawn never beam'd on your forefathers' eye, But it roused each high chieftain to vanquish or die.

[In Moidart, where Prince Charlie landed in 1745. 12 Where he displayed his standard.]

[3 Brother of the Marquis of Tullibardine, long a Jacobite exile.]

Mac-Niel of the Islands, and Moy of the Lake,

For honour, for freedom, for vengeance awake!

Awake on your hills, on your islands awake,

Brave sons of the mountain, the frith, and the lake!

'Tis the bugle--but not for the chase is the call;

'Tis the pibroch's shrill summons-but not to the hall.

'Tis the summons of heroes for conquest or death,

When the banners are blazing on mountain and heath; They call to the dirk, the claymore, and the targe,

To the march and the muster, the line and the charge.

Be the brand of each chieftain like Fin's in his ire!

May the blood through his veins flow like currents of fire! Burst the base foreign yoke as your sires did of yore!

Or die, like your sires, and endure it no more!

Chap. XXII.

FERGUS sings:-

O LADY of the desert, hail!
That lovest the harping of the Gael,
Through fair and fertile regions borne,
Where never yet grew grass or corn.

And again :-

O vous, qui buvez à tasse pleine,
A cette heureuse fontaine,
Où on ne voit sur le rivage

Que quelques vilains troupeaux, Suivis de nymphes de village,

Qui les escortent sans sabots
Chap. XXIII.