And by the bolts in thunder borne,
The heaven's own breast and mountain torn;
The wild roe from the forest driven;
The oaks of ages peeled and riven;
Impending oceans whirl and boil,
Convulsed by Nature's grand turmoil.
Instead of arms or golden crest,
His harp with mimic flowers was drest:
Around, in graceful streamers, fell
The briar-rose and the heather-bell;
And there, his learning deep to prove,
Naturae Donum graved above.
When o'er her mellow notes he ran,
And his wild mountain-chant began,
Then first was noted in his eye
A gleam of native energy.
Old David rose ere it was day,
And climbed old Wonfell's wizard-brae;
Looked round, with visage grim and sour,
D'er Ettrick-woods and Eskdale-moor.
An outlaw from the south he came,
And Ludlow was his father's name;
lis native land had used him ill,
And Scotland bore him no good-will.
is fixed he stood, in sullen scorn, Regardless of the streaks of morn, ld David spied, on Wonfell cone, fairy-band come riding on. lovelier troop was never seen; heir steeds were white, their doublets green, 'heir faces shone like opening morn, nd bloomed like roses on the thorn. t every flowing mane was hung silver bell that lightly rung; hat sound, borne on the breeze away, ft set the mountaineer to pray.
ld David crept close in the heath, arce moved a limb, scarce drew a breath; ut as the tinkling sound came nigh, d David's heart beat wondrous high. e thought of riding on the wind; leaving hawk and hern behind; sailing lightly o'er the sea, mussel-shell, to Germany; revel-raids by dale and down; lighting torches at the moon ; through the sounding spheres to sing, rne on the fiery meteor's wing; dancing 'neath the moonlight-sky; sleeping in the dew-cup's eye.
d then he thought-O! dread to tell! tithes the fairies paid to hell!
vid turned up a reverend eye, I fixed it on the morning-sky; knew a mighty One lived there, at sometimes heard a warrior's prayer
No word, save one, could David say; Old David had not learned to pray.
Scarce will a Scotsman yet regard
What David saw, and what he heard.
He heard their horses snort and tread,
And every word the riders said;
While green portmanteaus, long and low,
Lay bended o'er each saddle-bow.
A lovely maiden rode between,
Whom David judged the Fairy Queen;
But strange! he heard her moans resound,
And saw her feet with fetters bound.
Fast spur they on through bush and brake;
To Ettrick-woods their course they take.
Old David followed still in view,
Till near the Lochilaw they drew;
There, in a deep and wondrous dell,
Where wandering sunbeam never fell,
Where noontide-breezes never blew,
From flowers to drink the morning-dew;
There, underneath the sylvan shade,
The fairies' spacious bower was made.
Its rampart was the tangling sloe,
The bending briar, and mistletoe;
And o'er its roof the crooked oak
Waved wildly from the frowning rock.
This wondrous bower, this haunted dell,
The forest-shepherd shunned as hell!
When sound of fairies' silver horn
Came on the evening-breezes borne,
Homeward he fled, nor made a stand,
Thinking the spirits hard at hand.
But when he heard the eldritch swell
Of giggling laugh and bridle bell,
Or saw the riders troop along,
His orisons were loud and strong.
His household-fare he yielded free
To this mysterious company,
The fairest maid his cot within
Resigned with awe and little din:
True he might weep, but nothing say,
For none durst say the fairies nay.
Old David hasted home that night,
A wondering and a wearied wight.
Seven sons he had, alert and keen,
Had all in border-battles been;
Had wielded brand, and bent the bow,
For those who sought their overthrow.
Their hearts were true,their arms were strong,
Their faulchions keen, their arrows long;
The race of fairies they denied—
No fairies kept the English side.
Our yeomen on their armour threw
Their brands of steel and bows of yew,
Long arrows at their backs they sling,
Fledged from the Snowdon eagle's wing,
And boun' away brisk as the wind,
The sire before, the sons behind.
That evening fell so sweetly still, So mild on lonely moor and hill,
The little genii of the fell
Forsook the purple heather-bell,
And all their dripping beds of dew,
In wind-flower, thyme, and violet blue;
Aloft their viewless looms they heave,
And dew-webs round the helmets weave.
The waning moon her lustre threw
Pale round her throne of softened blue;
Her circuit round the southland-sky
Was languid, low, and quickly byc;
Leaning on cloud so faint and fair,
And cradled on the golden air,
Modest and pale as maiden bride,
She sunk upon the trembling tide.
What late in daylight proved a jest,
Was now the doubt of every breast.
That fairies were, was not disputed;
But what they were was greatly doubted.
Each argument was guarded well,
With if, and should, and who can tell.
Sure He that made majestic man,
And framed the world's stupendous plan;
Who placed on high the steady pole,
And sowed the stars that round it roll;
And made that sky, so large and blue—
Had power to make a fairy too.
The sooth to say, each valiant core
Knew feelings never felt before.
Oft had they darned the midnight-brake,
Fearless of aught save bog and lake;
But now the nod of sapling fir,
The heath-cock's loud exulting whirr,
The cry of hern from sedgy pool,
Or airy bleeter's rolling howl,
Came fraught with more dismaying dread
Than warder's horn, or warrior's tread.
Just as the gloom of midnight fell
They reached the fairies' lonely dell.
O Heavens! that dell was dark as death!
Perhaps the pit-fall yawned beneath!
Perhaps that lane that winded low,
Led to a nether world of woe!
But stern necessity's controul
Resistless sways the human soul.
The bows are bent, the tinders smoke
With fire by sword struck from the rock.
Old David held the torch before;
His right hand heaved a dread claymore,
Whose Rippon edge he meant to try
On the first fairy met his eye.
Above his head his brand was raised;
Above his head the taper blazed;
A sterner or a ghastlier sight,
Ne'er entered bower at dead of night.
Below each lifted arm was seen
The barbed point of arrow keen,
Which waited but the twang of bow
To fly like lightning on the foe.
Slow move they on, with steady eye,
Resolved to conquer or to die.
At length they spied a massive door.
Deep in a nook, unseen before;
And by it slept, on wicker chair,
A sprite of dreadful form and air.
His grisly beard flowed round his th
Like shaggy hair of mountain-goat;
His open jaws and visage grim,
His half-shut eye so deadly dim,
Made David's blood to's bosom rush.
And his gray hair his helmet brush.
He squared, and made his faulchion
Around his back from head to heel;
Then, rising tiptoe, struck amain—
Down fell the sleeper's head in twain;
And springing blood, in veil of smoke.
Whizzed high against the bending est
By Heaven! said George, with jocanda.“
Father, if all the fairies there
Are of the same materials made,
Let them beware the Rippon blade!
A ghastly smile was seen to play
O'er David's visage, stern and gray:
He hoped, and feared; but ne'er till.
Knew whether he fought with spriteser
The massy door they next unlock.
That oped to hall beneath the rock,
In which new wonders met the eye:
The room was ample, rude, and high.
The arches caverned, dark, and tora.
On Nature's rifted columns borne;
Of moulding rude the embrasure,
And all the wild entablature;
And far o'er roof and architrave,
The ivy's ringlets bend and wave.
In each abrupt recess was seen
A couch of heath and rushes green;
While every alcove's sombre hue
Was gemmed with drops of midnight
Why stand our heroes still as death,
Nor muscle move, nor heave a breath!
See how the sire his torch has lowerd.
And bends recumbent o'er his sword!
The arcubalister has thrown
His threatening, thirsty arrows down!
Struck in one moment, all the band
Entranced like moveless statues stand!
Enchantment sure arrests the spear,
And stints the warrior's bold career?
List, list, what mellow angel-sound
Distils from yonder gloom profound'
'Tis not the note of gathering shell,
Of fairy-horn, nor silver hell!
No, 'tis the lute's mellifluous swell,
Mixed with a maiden's voice so clear,
The flitting bats flock round to hear!
So wildly o'er the vault it rung.
That song, if in the green-wood sung.
Would draw the fays of wood and plais
To kiss the lips that poured the strain:
The lofty pine would listening lean;
The wild birch wave her tresses green;
larks, that rose the dawn to greet, ap lifeless at the singer's feet.
air was old, the measure slow, words were plain, but words of woe.
t died the strain; the warriors stand, rrested lance, nor lifted brand, t listening bend, in hopes again hear that sweetly plaintive strain. s gone! and each uplifts his eye, waked from dream of ecstasy.
y stoops young Owen's gilded crest? by heave those groans from Owen's breast? ile kinsmen's eyes in rapture speak, by steals the tear o'er Owen's cheek? at melting song, that song of pain, is sung to Owen's favourite strain; e words were new, but that sweet lay d Owen heard in happier day.
st press they on; in close-set row inded the lab'rinth far and low, ll, in the cave's extremest bound, rayed in sea-green silk, they found ve beauteous dames, all fair and young; d she, who late so sweetly sung, t leaning o'er a silver lute,
le with despair, with terror mute.
hen back her auburn locks she threw, d raised her eyes so lovely blue, was like the woodland-rose in dew! at look was soft as morning-flower, ad mild as sunbeam through the shower. d David gazed, and weened the while, saw a suffering angel smile; eened he had heard a seraph sing, ad sounds of a celestial string. it when young Owen met her view, e shrieked, and to his bosom flew : or, oft before, in Moodlaw bowers, hey two had passed the evening hours. e was the loveliest mountain-maid hat e'er by grove or riv'let strayed; ld Raeburn's child, the fairest flower hat ever bloomed in Eskdale-moor; was she the sire that morn had seen, nd judged to be the Fairy Queen; was she who framed the artless lay hat stopt the warriors on their way.
lose to her lover's breast she clung, nd round his neck enraptured hung: my dear Owen! haste and tell,
hat caused you dare this lonely dell, nd seek your maid, at midnight still, eep in the bowels of the hill? ere in this dark and drear abode, y all deserted but my God, Inst I have reft the life he gave, r lived in shame a villain's slave. was, at midnight's murkest hour, tole from my father's stately tower,
And never thought again to view
The sun or sky's ethereal blue;
But since the first of Border-men
Has found me in this dismal den,
I to his arms for shelter fly,
With him to live, or with him die.
How glowed brave Owen's manly face!
While in that lady's kind embrace!
Warm tears of joy his utterance staid
O, my loved Ann! was all he said.
Though well they loved, her high estate
Caused Owen aye aloof to wait;
And watch her bower, beside the rill,
When twilight rocked the breezes still,
And waked the music of the grove
To hymn the vesper-song of love.
Then underneath the green-wood bough,
Oft had they breathed the tender vow.
With Ann of Raeburn here they found
The flowers of all the Border round;
From whom the strangest tale they hear,
That e'er astounded warrior's ear.
"Twould make even Superstition blush,
And all her tales of spirits hush.
That night the spoilers ranged the vale,
By Dryhope towers, and Meggat-dale;
Ah! little trowed the fraudful train,
They ne'er should see their wealth again!
Their lemans, and their mighty store,
For which they nightly toils had bore
Full twenty autumn-moons and more,
They little deemed, when morning dawned,
To meet the deadly Rippon brand;
And only find, at their return,
In their loved cave an early urn.
Ill suits it simple bard to tell
Of bloody work that there befell:
He lists not deeds of death to sing,
Of splintered spear, and twanging string,
Of piercing arrow's purpled wing,
How faulchions flash, and helmets ring.
Not one of all that prowling band,
So long the terror of the land,
Not one escaped their deeds to tell;
All in the winding lab'rinth fell.—
The spoil was from the cave conveyed,
Where in a heap the dead were laid;
The outer cave our yeomen fill,
And left them in the hollow hill.
But still that dell, and bourn beneath,
The forest-shepherd dreads as death.
Not there at evening dares he stray,
Though love impatient points the way;
Though throbs his heart the maid to see
That's waiting by the trysting tree.
Even the old sire, so reverend gray,
Ere turns the scale of night and day,
Oft breathes the short and ardent prayer,
That Heaven may guard his footsteps there;
His eyes, meantime, so dim with dread,
Scarce ken the turf his foot must tread.
For still 'tis told, and still believed,
That there the spirits were deceived,
And maidens from their grasp retrieved:
That this they still preserve in mind,
And watch, when sighs the midnight-wind,
To reck their rage on humankind.
Old David, for this doughty raid,
Was keeper of the forest made;
A trooper he of gallant fame,
And first of all the Laidlaw name.
E'er since, in Ettrick's glens so green,
Spirits, though there, are seldom seen;
And fears of elf, and fairy-raid,
Have like a morning-dream decayed.
The bare-foot maid, of rosy hue,
Dares from the heath-flower brush the dew,
To meet her love in moonlight still,
By flowery den or tinkling rill;
And well dares she till midnight stay,
Among the coils of fragrant hay.
True, some weak shepherds, gone astray,
As fell the dusk of Hallow-day,
Have heard the tinkling sound aloof,
And gentle tread of horse's hoof;
And flying swifter than the wind,
Left all their scattered flocks behind.
True, when the evening-tales are told,
When winter-nights are dark and cold,
The boy dares not to barn repair,
Alone, to say his evening-prayer;
Nor dare the maiden ope the door,
Unless her lover walk before;
Then well can counterfeit the fright,
If star-beam on the water light;
And to his breast in terror cling,
For such a dread and dangerous thing!
O, Ettrick! shelter of my youth!
Thou sweetest glen of all the south!
Thy fairy-tales, and songs of yore,
Shall never fire my bosom more;
Thy winding glades, and mountains wild,
The scenes that pleased me when a child,
Each verdant vale, and flowery lea,
Still in my midnight-dreams I see;
And waking oft, I sigh for thee;
Thy hapless bard, though forced to roam,
Afar from thee without a home,
Still there his glowing breast shall turn,
Till thy green bosom fold his urn:
Then, underneath thy mountain-stone,
Shall sleep unnoticed and unknown,
When ceased the shepherd's simple lay,
With careless mien he lounged away;
No bow he deigned, nor anxious looked
How the gay throng their minstrel brooked:
No doubt within his bosom grew,
That to his skill the prize was due.
Well might he hope, for while he sung
Louder and louder plaudits rung;
And when he ceased his numbers wild,
Fair Royalty approved and smiled.
Long had the bard, with hopes elate,
Sung to the low, the gay, the great;
And once had dared, at flatterer's call
To tune his harp in Branxholm hall;
But nor his notes of soothing sound,
Nor zealous word of bard renowned,
Might those persuade, that worth es
Inherent in such mean degree.
But when the smile of Sovereign fair
Attested genuine nature there,
Throbbed high with rapture every
And all his merit stood confest.
Different the next the herald named: Warrior he was, in battle maimed, When Lennox, on the downs of hyl O'erthrew Maconnel and Argyle. Unable more the sword to wield With dark Clan-Alpine in the field. Or rouse the dun deer from her den With fierce Macfarlane and his men: He strove to earn a minstrel-name, And fondly nursed the sacred flame. Warm was his heart, and bold his stri Wild fancies in his moody brain Gambolled, unbridled, and unbound. Lured by a shade, decoyed by sound.
In tender age, when mind was free. As standing by his nurse's knee, He heard a tale, so passing strange, Of injured spirit's cool revenge, It chilled his heart with blasting dre Which never more that bosom fled. When passion's flush had fled his eye And gray hairs told that youth was Still quaked his heart at bush or st As wandering in the gloom alone.
Where foxes roam, and eagles rave And dark woods round Ben-Lomon Once on a night, a night of dread! He held convention with the dead: Brought warnings to the house of ¿ And tidings from a world beneath.
Loud blew the blast-the evening The way was long, the minstrel lam The mountain's side was dern with Darkened with pine, and ribbed wi Blue billows round its base were d Its top was steeped in waves of heav The wood, the wind, the billows All spoke in language of their own. But too well to our minstrel know Wearied, bewildered, in amaze, Hymning in heart the Virgin's pras A cross he framed, of birchen boug And 'neath that cross he laid him Hid by the heath, and Highland pa His old harp in his bosom laid.
O! when the winds that wandered by,
Sung on her breast their lullaby,
How thrilled the tones his bosom through,
And deeper, holier, poured his vow!
No sleep was his-he raised his eye, To note if dangerous place was nigh. There columned rocks, abrupt and rude, Hung o'er his gateless solitude: The muffled sloe, and tangling brier, Precluded freak or entrance here; But yonder oped a little path, D'ershadowed, deep, and dark as death. Trembling, he groped around his lair For mountain-ash, but none was there. ceming with forms, his terror grew; Ieedful he watched, for well he knew, 'hat in that dark and devious dell ome lingering ghost or sprite must dwell: o as he trowed, so it befell.
The stars were wrapt in curtain gray, 'he blast of midnight died away: Twas just the hour of solemn dread, When walk the spirits of the dead: Hustled the leaves with gentle motion, roaned his chilled soul in deep devotion. he lake-fowl's wake was heard no more; he wave forgot to brush the shore! ushed was the bleat, on moor and hill; he wandering clouds of heaven stood still.
What heart could bear, what eye could
meet, e spirits in their lone retreat! istled again the darksome dell; raight on the minstrel's vision fell trembling and unwonted light,
at showed the phantoms to his sight.
Came first a slender female form,
le as the moon in winter-storm;
babe of sweet simplicity
ing to her breast as pale as she,
daye she sung its lullaby.
at cradle-song of the phantom's child, but it was soothing, holy, and wild! t. O! that song can ill be sung Lowland bard, or Lowland tongue.
THE SPECTRE'S CRADLE-SONG. sh, my bonny babe! hush, and be still! y mother's arms shall shield thee from ill. have I borne thee in sorrow and pain, drink the breeze of the world again. · dew shall moisten thy brow so meek, the breeze of midnight fan thy cheek, soon shall we rest in the bow of the hill; h. my bonny babe! hush, and be still! thee have I travelled, in weakness and
world above and the world below. heart was soft, and it fell in the snare: father was cruel, but thou wert fair.
I sinned, I sorrowed, I died for thee; Smile, my bonny babe! smile on me!
See yon thick clouds of murky hue;
Yon star that peeps from its window blue;
Above yon clouds, that wander far,
Away, above yon little star,
There's a home of peace that shall soon be thine,
And there shalt thou see thy Father and mine.
The flowers of the world shall bud and decay,
The trees of the forest be weeded away;
But there shalt thou bloom for ever and aye.
The time will come, I shall follow thee;
But long, long hence that time shall be:
O weep not thou for thy mother's ill;
Hush, my bonny babe! hush, and be still!
Slow moved she on with dignity, Nor bush, nor brake, nor rock, nor tree, Her footsteps staid-o'er cliff so bold, Where scarce the roe her foot could hold, Stately she wandered, firm and free, Singing her softened lullaby.
Three naked phantoms next came on; They beckoned low, passed, and were gone. Then came a troop of sheeted dead, With shade of chieftain at their head; And with our bard, in brake forlorn, Held converse till the break of morn. Their ghostly rites, their looks, their mould, Or words to man, he never told; But much he learned of mystery, Of what was past, and what should be. Thenceforth he troubles oft divined, And scarcely held his perfect mind; Yet still the song, admired when young, He loved, and that in Court he sung.
THE ELEVENTH BARD'S SONG.
Macgregor, Macgregor, remember our foemen;
The moon rises broad from the brow of Ben-
Lomond;
The clans are impatient, and chide thy delay;
Arise! let us bound to Glen-Lyon away.-
Stern scowled the Macgregor, then silent and sullen, He turned his red eye to the braes of StrathGillan: Go, Malcolm, to sleep, let the clans be dismissed; The Campbells this night for Macgregor
Macgregor, Macgregor, our scouts have been
flying.
Three days, round the hills of M-Nab and
Glen-Lyon;
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