III.

E'en yet preserved, how often may'st thou hear,
Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run,
Taught by the father to his list'ning son,
Strange lays, whose power had charm'd a Spenser's ear
At ev'ry pause, before thy mind possest,

Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around,
With uncouth lyres, in many.colour'd vest,

Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown'd: Whether thou bidd'st the well-taught hind repeat

The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave, When ev'ry shrieking maid her bosom beat,

And strew'd with choicest herbs his scented grave; Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel,*

Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms When at the bugle's call, with fire and steel,

The sturdy clans pour'd forth their brawny swarms, And hostile brothers met to prove each others' arms

IV.

"Tis thine, to sing, how, framing hideous spells,
In Sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard-seer,
Lodged in the wintry cave, with Fate's fell spear
Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells:

How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross,
With their own visions oft astonish'd droop'd,
When, o'er the watʼry strath or quaggy moss,
They see the gliding ghosts' unbodied troop;
Or, if in sports, or on the festive green,
Their destined glance some fated youth descry,
Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen,
And rosy health, shall soon lamented die.

A summer hut, built in the high part of the mountains, to tend their flocks in the warm season, when the pasture is fine.

For them the viewless forms of air obey, Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair:

They know what spirit brews the stormful day, And heartless, oft like moody madness, stare

To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.

V.

'Or on some bel'ying rock that shades the deep,

They view the lurid signs that cross the sky, Where, in the west, the brooding tempests lie: • And hear their first, faint, rustling pennons sweep. 'Or in the arched cave, where deep and dark

The broad, unbroken billows heave and swell,
In horrid musings wrapt, they sit to mark
The lab'ring moon; or list the nightly yell
'Of that dread spirit, whose gigantic form

The seer's entranced eye can well survey, Through the dim air who guides the driving storm, And points the wretched bark its destined prey. • Or him who hovers on his flagging wing

'O'er the dire whirlpool, that, in ocean's waste, 'Draws instant down whate'er devoted thing

The failing breeze within its reach hath placed-• The distant seaman hears, and flies with trembling haste.

VI.

'Or, if on land the fiend exerts his sway,

Silent he broods o'er quicksand, bog, or fen, 'Far from the shelt'ring roof and haunts of men,

• When witched darkness shuts the eye of day,

And shrouds each star that wont to cheer the night; 'Or, if the drifted snow perplex the way,

'With treach❜rous gleam he lures the fated wight, • And leads him flound'ring on and quite astray.'

VII.

To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray,
Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow!
The Seer, in Sky, shriek'd as the blood did flow,
When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay !
As Boreas threw her young Aurora forth,

In the first year of the first George's reign,
And battles raged in welkin of the North,

They mourn'd in air, fell, fell rebellion slain! And as, of late, they joy'd in Preston's fight,

Saw, at sad Falkirk, all their hopes near crown'd! They raved divining, through their second sight, Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drown'd! Illustrious William! Britain's guardian name!

One William saved us from a Tyrant's stroke; He, for a sceptre, gain'd heroic fame,

But thou, more glorious, Slavery's chain hast broke, To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom's yoke !

VIII.

These, too, thou'lt sing! for well thy magic muse
Can to the topmost heaven of grandeur scar;
Or stoop to wail the swain that is no more!
Ah, homely swains! your homeward steps ne'er lose;
Let not dank Will mislead you to the heath;
Dancing in murky night, o'er fen and lake,

He glows, to draw you downward to your death,
In his bewitch'd, low, marshy, willow brate!
What though far off, from some dark dell espied,
His glimmering mazes cheer th' excursive sight,
Yet turn, ye wanderers, turn your steps aside,
Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light;
For watchful, lurking, mid th' unrustling reed,
At those murk hours the wily monster lies,
And listens oft to hear the passing steed,

And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes, [prise. If chance his savage wrath may some weak wretch su

IX.

Ah, luckless swain! o'er all unblest, indeed!
Whom late bewilder'd in the dank, dark fen,
Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then
To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed:
On him, enraged, the fiend, in angry mood,
Shall never look with pity's kind concern,

But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood
O'er its drown'd banks, forbidding all return!
Or, if he meditate his wish'd escape,
To some dim hill that seems uprising near,

To his faint eye, the grim and grisly shape,
In all his terrors clad, shall wild appear.

Meantime the wat'ry surge shall round him rise, Pour'd sudden forth from ev'ry swelling source!

What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs? His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthful force, And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse!

X.

For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait,
Or wander forth to meet him on his way;
For him in vain at to-fall of the day,
His babes shall linger at th' unclosing gate!
Ah, ne'er shall he return! Alone, if night,

Her travell'd limbs in broken slumbers steep!
With drooping willows drest, his mournful sprite
Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep:
Then he, perhaps, with moist and watʼry hand
Shall fondly seem to press her shudd'ring cheek,
And with his blue-swoln face before her stand,

And, shiv'ring cold, these piteous accents speak: 'Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils, pursue,

At dawn or dusk, industrious as before; Nor e'er of me one helpless thought renew,

While I lie welt'ring on the osier'd shore, [more! Drown'd by the Kelpie's* wrath, nor e'er shall aid thee

XI.

Unbounded is thy range; with varied skill

[spring

Thy Muse may, like those feath'ry tribes which
From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing
Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle,
To that hoar pilet which still its ruin shews:
In whose small vaults a pigmy-folk is found,

Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows, And culls them, wond'ring, from the hallow'd ground! Or thither, where beneath the show'ry west,

The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid : Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest,

No slaves revere them, and no wars invade: Yet frequent now, at midnight's solemn hour, The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold, And forth the monarchs stalk with sov 'reign pow'r, In pageant robes, and wreath'd with sheeny gold, And on their twilight tombs aërial council hold.

XII.

But, oh! o'er all, forget not Kilda's race,

On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides Fair Nature's daughter, Virtue, yet abides. Go! just as they, their blameless manners trace! Then to my ear transmit some gentle song, Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain, Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along, And all their prospect but the wintry main.

* The water-fierd.

+ One of the Hebrides is called The Isle of Pigmies, where, it la reported, that several miniature bones of the human species have been dug up in the ruins of the chapei there.

Icolmkill, one of the Hebriles, where near sixty of the ancient Scottish, Irish. and Norwegian kings are interred.