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 scattered 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 lightening of
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'Tis thine, oh Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning: no rider is there ;
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep, Albin!' to death and captivity led!
Oh weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead:
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,
Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.
Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer!
Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight!
This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.
Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn ?
Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn!
Say, rushed 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;
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.
False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled 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
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, When Albin her claymore indignantly draws; When her bonnetted chieftains to victory crowd, Clamanald the dauntless, and Moray the proud; All plaided and plumed in their tartan array
-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 fugitive
king.
|