XIV. "They would have cross'd themselves, all mute Away! away to Athunree! Where, downward when the sun shall fall, The raven's wing shall be your pall! And not a vassal shall unlace The vizor from your dying face!' XV. "A bolt that overhung our dome A sudden storm their plumage toss'd, XVI. "Stranger! I fled the home of grief, LOCHIEL'S WARNING. (8) WIZARD-LOCHIEL. WIZARD. LOCHIEL, Lochiel! beware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, And the clans of Culloden are scatter'd in fight. They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown; Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down! Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain, And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain. But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war, What steed to the desert flies frantic and far? A steed comes at morning: no rider is there; Oh weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead: LOCHIEL. Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer! Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight, WIZARD. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn? Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn! Say, rush the bold eagle exultingly forth, From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the north? Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode Companionless, bearing destruction abroad; The Gaelic appellation of Scotland, more particularly the Highlands. But down let him stoop from his havoc on high! Ah! home let him speed,-for the spoiler is nigh. Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast? "Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven From his eyrie, that beacons the darkness of heaven. Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might, Whose banners arise on the battlements' height, Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn; Return to thy dwelling! all lonely, return! For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood. LOCHIEL. False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshall'd my clan, Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one! They are true to the last of their blood and their breath, And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock! Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock! But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, When Albin her claymore indignantly draws; When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd, Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud, All plaided and plumed in their tartan array WIZARD. -Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day! For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal, But man cannot cover what God would reveal; 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before. I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring With the blood-hounds that bark for thy fugi. tive king. Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath, Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!* Now in darkness and billows he sweeps from my sight: Rise, rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight! 'Tis finish'd. Their thunders are hush'd on the moors: Culloden is lost, and my country deplores. But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where? Ah, no! for a darker departure is near; The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier; *The lines allude to the many hardships of the royal sufferer. |