LINES

ON THE GRAVE OF A SUICIDE.

By strangers left upon a lonely shore,
Unknown, unhonour'd, was the friendless
dead;

For child to weep, or widow to deplore,
There never came to his unburied head:
All from his dreary habitation fled:
Nor will the lantern'd fisherman at eve

Launch on that water by the witches' tow'r, Where hellebore and hemlock seem to weave Round its dark vaults a melancholy bow'r, For spirits of the dead at night's enchanted hour.

They dread to meet thee, poor unfortunate! Whose crime it was, on life's unfinish'd road To feel the stepdame buffetings of fate,

And render back thy being's heavy load. Ah! once, perhaps, the social passions glow'd In thy devotod bosom-and the hand

That smote its kindred heart might yet be prone

To deeds of mercy, Who may understand

Thy many woes, poor suicide, unknown?He who thy being gave shall judge of thee alone,

REULLURA.*

STAR of the morn and eve,
Reullura shone like thee,

And well for her might Aodh grieve,
The dark attired Culdee.†

Peace to their shades! the pure Culdees
Were Albyn's earliest priests of God,
Ere yet an island of her seas

By foot of Saxon monk was trode,
Long ere her churchmen by bigotry
Were barr'd from holy wedlock's tie,
'Twas then that Aodh, famed afar,

In Iona preach'd the word with power,

*Reullura, in Gaelic, signifies "beautiful

star."

†The Culdees were the primitive clergy of Scotland, and apparently her only clergy from the sixth to the eleventh century. They were of Irish origin; and their monastery, on the island of Iona or Icolmkill, was the seminary of Christianity in North Britain. Presbyterian writers have wished to prove them to have been a sort of Presbyters, strangers to the Roman Church and Episcopacy. It seems to be established that they were not enemies to Episcopacy; but that they were not slavishly subjected to Rome, like the clergy of later periods, appears by their resisting the Papal ordinances respecting the celibacy of religious men, on which account they were ultimately displaced by the Scottish sove. reigns to make way for more Popish canons.

And Reullura, beauty's star,

Was the partner of his bower.

But, Aodh, the roof lies low,

And the thistle-down waves bleaching,
And the bat flits to and fro

Where the Gael once heard thy preaching;
And fallen is each column'd aisle

Where the chiefs and the people knelt.
'Twas near that temple's goodly pile
That honour'd of men they dwelt.
For Aodh was wise in the sacred law,
And bright Reullura's eyes oft saw
The veil of fate uplifted.

Alas, with what visions of awe

Her soul in that hour was gifted

When pale in the temple and faint,
When Aodh she stood alone
By the statue of an aged Saint!
Fair sculptured was the stone,
It bore a crucifix;

Fame said it once had graced
A Christian temple, which the Picts
In the Britons' land laid waste:
The Pictish men, by St. Columb taught,
Had hither the holy relic brought.
Reullura eyed the statue's face,"
And cried, "It is he shall come,

Even he, in this very place,
To avenge my martyrdom.

"For, woe to the Gael people!
Ulvfagre is on the main,

And Iona shall look from tower and steeple
On the coming ships of the Dane;

And, dames and daughters, shall all your locks
With the spoiler's grasp entwine?

No! some shall have shelter in caves and rocks
And the deep sea shall be mine.
Baffled by me shall the Dane return,

And here shall his torch in the temple burn,
Until that holy man shall plow

The waves from Innisfail.
His sail is on the deep e'en now,

And swells to the southern gale.

"Ah! knowest thou not, my bride,"

The holy Aodh said,

"That the Saint whose form we stand beside Has for ages slept with the dead?" "He liveth, he liveth," she said again, "For the span of his life tenfold extends Beyond the wonted years of men.

He sits by the graves of well-loved friends
That died ere thy grandsire's grandsire's birth'
The oak is decayed with old age on earth,
Whose acorn-seed had been planted by him;
And his parents remember the day of dread
When the sun on the cross look'd dim,
And the graves gave up their dead.

"Yet, preaching from clime to clime,
He hath roam'd the earth for ages,
And hither he shall come in time
When the wrath of the heathen rages,
In time a remnant from the sword-
Ah! but a remnant to deliver;
Yet, blest be the name of the Lord!

*

His martyrs shall go into bliss for ever. Lochlin, appall'd, shall put up her steel, And thou shalt embark on the bounding keel; Safe shalt thou pass through her hundred ships, With the Saint and a remnant of the Gael, And the Lord will instruct thy lips

To preach in Innisfail."

The sun, now about to set,
Was burning o'er Tiriee,
And no gathering cry rose yet

O'er the isles of Albyn's sea.
Whilst Reullura saw far rowers dip
Their oars beneath the sun,

And the phantom of many a Danish ship,
Where ship there yet was none.
And the shield of alarm; was dumb,
Nor did their warning till midnight come,
When watch-fires burst from across
From Rona and Uist and Skey,
To tell that the ships of the Dane
And the red-hair'd slayers were nigh.

Our islesmen arose from slumbers,
And buckled on their arms;
But few, alas! were their numbers
To Lochlin's mailed swarms.
And the blade of the bloody Norse
Has fill'd the shores of the Gael

With many a floating corse,

And with many a woman's wail.

* Denmark.

† Ireland.

Striking the shield was an ancient mode of convocation to war among the Gael.