Imatges de pàgina
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The Bugle.

Night, at its pulseless noon!

When the far voice of waters mourns in song,
And some tired watch-dog, lazily and long,
Barks at the melancholy moon.

Hark! how it sweeps away!
Soaring and dying on the silent sky,

As if some sprite of sound went wandering by,
With lone halloo and roundelay!

Swell, swell in glory out!

Thy tones come pouring on my leaping heart,
And my stirr'd spirit hears thee with a start,
As boyhood's old remember'd shout.

Oh! have ye heard that peal,

From sleeping city's moon-bathed battlements,
Or from the guarded field and warrior tents,
Like some near breath around you steal?

Or have ye in the roar

Of sea, or storm, or battle, heard it rise,
Shriller than eagle's clamour, to the skies,
Where wings and tempests never soar?

Go, go-no other sound,

No music that of air or earth is born,
Can match the mighty music of that horn,
On midnight's fathomless profound! .

351

WHY

Culloden.

HY linger on this battle heath,
So sterile, wild, and lonely now?
Stranger! it tells a tale of death,

That well befits its barren brow.
Nay! rest not on that swelling sod,

But let us hence: It marks a grave, Whose verdure is the price of bloodThe heart-stream of the vainly brave.

Long years ago, from o'er the sea,

A banish'd prince, of Stuart's line, Came thither, claiming fealty

And succour in his sire's decline. A triple diadem—a throne—

Ambition's toys—his birthright were: Of valleys, lakes, and mountains lone, Of all our country was he heir.

And there we saw the chequer'd plaid
Across his bosom proudly cast,—
The mountain bonnet on his head,

Its black plumes streaming in the blast: And then we heard the gathering cry Come blended with the pibroch's strain,

And saw the fire-cross flashing by,

Our warriors gathering on the plain.

In sooth it was a stirring sight!

To these old eyes, grown dim with tears, Still, piercing through the after-night, The past in all its pomp appears.

Culloden.

These shelter'd glens and dusky hills,
Yon isles that gem the western wave,
Sent forth their strength like mountain rills,
To bleed, to die,-but not to save.

Away we rush'd, for chiefs were there;
And where should we, their clansmen, be
But by their side?-the worst to dare,
Aye changeless, in fidelity.

And yon young regal warrior, too,
So gaily in our tartans dress'd,
Was in our van; there proudly flew
The heather o'er his dancing crest.

Then came the Southron, hand to hand,
And wide and wasting was the fray;
But Victory smiled on Scotia's brand,

And swept their trembling ranks away.
We chased them o'er the border streams:
Then England heard our slogan shout,
And saw with dread the boreal gleams
Of Highland claymores flashing out.

The fox wax'd strong: our chieftains frown'd
In council on each other: then

We basely left our vantage ground,

And turn'd us home like beaten men. Yet England's blue-eyed yeomen bold, Though vaunting in their long array, Confess'd it was no play to hold,

Or strike, the mountain deer at bay.

At length Culloden's boding heath,
Despairing, saw our clansmen stand,
While, flaming like the sword of death,
Before us gleam'd the Saxon brand.

353

It smote us merciless; it slew

The flower of many a warrior clan,
Till down yon bank the crimson dew,
To mingle with the hill-stream ran.

Our chieftains sought their native hills ;
Our prince was hunted like the deer;
The captives pour'd their blood in rills;
Nor dared a vassal raise the spear.
Come, come away! you've now the tale,
That cost our country tears of blood:
The Saxon conquer'd, and the Gael

Lies mouldering 'neath the verdant sod.

The Shipwreck of Eamoëns.

"On his return from banishment, Camoëns was shipwrecked at the mouth of the river Gambia. He saved himself by clinging to a plank, and of all his little property succeeded only in saving his poem of the 'Luciad,' deluged with the waves as he brought it in his hand to shore." *-SISMONDI.

"I saw him beat the surges under him,

And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted

The surge most swoln that met him.”—Tempest.

CLO

'LOUDS gather'd o'er the dark blue sky,
The sun wax'd dim and pale,

And the music of the waves was changed

To the plaintive voice of wail;

*He is described with his sword in his hand upon the authority of his own words:

"N'huma mao livros, n'outra, ferro et aco,

N'huma mao sempre a espada, n'outra a pena."

The Shipwreck of Camoëns.

355

And fearfully the lightning flash'd

Around the ship's tall mast,

While mournfully through the creaking shrouds
Came the sighing of the blast.

With pallid cheek the seamen shrank

Before the deepening gloom;

For they gazed on the black and boiling sea
As 'twere a yawning tomb;

But on the vessel's deck stood one

With proud and changeless brow: Nor pain, nor terror was in the look He turn'd to the gulf below.

And calmly to his arm he bound
His casket and his sword;
Unheeding, though with fiercer strength
The threatening tempest roar'd;

Then stretch'd his sinewy arms, and cried:
"For me there yet is hope;

The limbs that have spurn'd a tyrant's chain
With the stormy wave may cope.

"Now let the strife of nature rage,
Proudly I yet can claim,

Where'er the waters may bear me on,
My freedom and my fame."

The dreaded moment came too soon,
The sea swept madly on,

Till the wall of waters closed around,
And the noble ship was gone.

Then rose one wild, half-stifled cry;
The swimmer's bubbling breath
Was all unheard, while the raging tide
Wrought well the task of death;

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