66 Stay! stay with us!-rest! thou art weary and worn!"
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay-
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
XIII.-BRUCE TO HIS ARMY.-Burns.
SCOTS! wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victory!
Now's the day and now's the hour!
See the front of battle lower!
See, approach proud Edward's power-
Edward!-chains and slavery!
Wha will be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be--a slave?
Traitor! coward! turn and flee!
Wha, for Scotland's king and law,
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or Freeman fa'?
Caledonian!-on wi' me!
By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall--they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Forward!-let us do, or die!
Now stood Eliza on the wood-crowned height,
O'er Minden's plain, spectatress of the fight;
Sought, with bold eye, amid the bloody strife,
Her dearer self, the partner of her life;
From hill to hill the rushing host pursued,
And viewed his banner, or believed she viewed.
Pleased with the distant roar, with quicker tread
Fast by his hand one lisping boy she led;
And one fair girl amid the loud alarm
Slept on her kerchief, cradled by her arm;
While round her brows bright beams of honour dart,
And love's warm eddies circle in her heart.
Near and more near the intrepid beauty pressed,
Saw, through the driving smoke, his dancing crest;
Heard the exulting shout, "They run! they run!"
"O Joy!" she cried, "he's safe! the battle's won!"
A ball now hisses through the airy tides,
(Some Fury wings it, and some Demon guides !)
Parts the fine locks, her graceful head that deck,
Wounds her fair ear, and sinks into her neck;
The red stream issuing from her azure veins,
Dyes her white veil, her ivory bosom stains.
"Ah me!" she cried, and, sinking on the ground,
Kissed her dear babes, regardless of the wound;
"Oh, cease not yet to beat, thou vital urn!
Wait, gushing life, oh, wait my love's return!
Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from far!
The angel, Pity, shuns the walks of war!
O spare, ye war-hounds, spare their tender age! —
On me, on me," she cried, exhaust your rage!"
Then, with weak arms, her weeping babes caressed,
And, sighing, hid them in her blood-stained vest.
From tent to tent the impatient Warrior flies,
Fear in his heart and frenzy in his eyes;
"Eliza !" loud along the camp he calls,
"Eliza!" echoes through the canvas walls:
Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread,
O'er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead;
Vault o'er the plain, and, in the tangled wood,
Lo! dead Eliza weltering in her blood!
Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds,
With open arms and sparkling eyes he bounds:-
"Speak low," he cries, and gives his little hand,
"Mamma's asleep upon the dew-cold sand.
Alas! we both with cold and hunger quake-
Why do you weep?-Mamma will soon awake."
"She'll wake no more!" the hopeless mourner cried,
Upturned his eyes, and clasped his hands, and sighed ;
Stretched on the ground a while entranced he lay,
And pressed warm kisses on the lifeless clay;
And then upsprung with wild convulsive start,
And all the father kindled in his heart.
"O, Heaven!" he cried, "my first rash vow forgive!
These bind to earth, for these I pray to live!"
Round his chill babes he wrapped his crimson vest,
And clasped them, sobbing, to his aching breast.
O, YOUNG Lochinvar is come out of the west!
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And, save his good broad-sword, he weapon had none;
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone!
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war.
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar !
He staid not for brake, and he stopped not for stone,
He swam the Esk river where ford there was none-
But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
The bride had consented!-the gallant came late:
For, a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar!
So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,
'Mong bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all:
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword-
For the poor, craven bridegroom said never a word-
"O, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war?—
Or to dance at our bridal?-young Lord Lochinvar!”
"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied:
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide!
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine!-
There are maidens in Scotland, more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar!"
The bride kissed the goblet! The knight took it up,
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup!
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh-
With a smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,—
"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.
So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace!
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bride-maidens whispered, ""Twere better by far
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar !"
One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
When they reached the hall-door, and the charger stood near— So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur!
They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" quoth young Lochinvar.
There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan; Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran; There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lea
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have ye heard of gallant like the young Lochinvar ?
XVI. THE GHEBERS' ATTACK.-Moore.
BUT see! he starts-what heard he then?
That dreadful shout!-across the glen
From the land-side it comes, and loud
Rings through the chasm; as if the crowd
Of fearful things that haunt that dell,
Its Gholes, and Dives, and shapes of hell,
Had all in one dread howl broke out,
So loud, so terrible that shout!
66 They come the Moslems come!"-he cries,
His proud soul mounting to his eyes:-
"Now, Spirits of the Brave! who roam
Enfranchised through yon starry dome,
Rejoice for souls of kindred fire
Are on the wing to join your choir !"
He said and, light as bridegrooms bound,
With eager haste reclimbed the steep,
And gained the shrine:-his Chiefs stood round.
Their swords, as with instinctive leap,
Together, at that cry accurs'd,
Had, from their sheaths, like sunbeams, burst!
And hark!-again-again it rings;
Near and more near its echoings
Peal through the chasm.-Oh! who that then
Had seen those listening warrior-men,
With their swords grasped, their eyes of flame
Turned on their Chief-could doubt the shame,
The indignant shame, with which they thrill,
To hear those shouts, and yet stand still?
He read their thoughts-they were his own:-
"What! while our arms can wield these blades,
Shall we die tamely? die alone?
Without one victim to our shades-
One Moslem heart, where, buried deep,
The sabre from its toil may sleep?
No! God of Iran's burning skies!
Thou scorn'st the inglorious sacrifice.
No!-though of all earth's hopes bereft,
Life, swords, and vengeance, still are left!
We'll make yon valley's reeking caves
Live in the awe-struck minds of men,
Till tyrants shudder, when their slaves
Tell of the Ghebers' bloody glen.
Follow, brave hearts!-this pile remains,
Our refuge still from life and chains;
But his the best, the holiest bed,
Who sinks entombed in Moslem dead!"
XVII. THE EXILE OF ERIN.-Campbell.
THERE came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill;
For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill:
But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion;
For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once, in the fervour of youth's warm emotion,
He sang the bold anthem of ERIN GO BRAGH!
"Sad is my fate!" said the heart-broken stranger—
The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee;
But I have no refuge from famine and danger :
A home and a country remain not to me!
Never again, in the green sunny bowers
Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours; Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of ERIN GO BRAGH!
"Erin! my country! though sad and forsaken, In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore! But, alas! in a far, foreign land I awaken,
And sigh for the friends that can meet me no more! Oh, cruel Fate! wilt thou never replace me
In a mansion of peace, where no perils can chase me? Never again shall my brothers embrace me !
They died to defend me!—or live to deplore!
"Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild wood?
Sisters and sire, did ye weep for its fall?
Where is the mother that looked on my childhood?
And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all?
Ah! my sad soul, long abandoned by pleasure!
Why didst thou dote on a fast-fading treasure?
Tears, like the rain-drops, may fall without measure;
But rapture and beauty they cannot recal!
"Yet all its sad recollections suppressing-
One dying wish my lone bosom shall draw :-Erin! an exile bequeaths thee-his blessing! Land of my forefathers!--ERIN GO BRAGH! Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion, Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the ocean! And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion, ERIN MAVOURNEEN! ERIN GO BRAGH!"
XVIII. TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE.-Coleridge.
MARK this holy chapel well!
The birth-place this of William Tell.
Here, where stands Heaven's altar dread,
Stood his parents' humble shed.
Here first an infant to her breast,
Him his loving mother pressed;
And kissed the babe, and blessed the day,
And prayed, as mothers used to pray :
"Vouchsafe him health, O! Heaven and give
The child, thy servant, still to live!"
But Heaven had destined to do more
Through him, than through an armed power.
He gave him reverence of laws,
Yet stirring blood in Freedom's cause--
A spirit to his rocks akin-
The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein!
To Nature and to Holy Writ
Alone did He the boy commit:
Where flashed and roared the torrent, oft
His soul found wings, and soared aloft!
The straining oar and chamois' chace
Had formed his limbs to strength and grace:
On wave and wind the boy would toss--
Was great, nor knew how great he was!
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