A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from the Best Poets

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But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of

war,

What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'Tis thine, O 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 !
O, 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.

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 bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive
king.

Lo! anointed by Heaven with the phials 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 finished. Their thunders are hushed on the

moors.

Culloden is lost, and my country deplores,
But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where?
For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.
Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn,
Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and
torn?

Ah no! for a darker departure is near;

That knits me to thy rugged strand?
Still, as I view each well-known scene,
Think what is now, and what hath been,
Seems as, to me, of all bereft,

Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
And thus I love them better still,
Even in extremity of ill.

By Yarrow's stream still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The bard may draw his parting groan.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

MACGREGOR'S GATHERING.

Air, "THAIN' A GRIGALACH."

[These verses are adapted to a very wild, yet lively, gathering tune, used by the Macgregors. The severe treatment of this clan,

their outlawry, and the proscription of their very name, are alluded to in the ballad.]

The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier; THE moon's on the lake, and the mist 's on the His death-bell is tolling: O mercy, dispel

Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims.
Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown ere it ceases to
beat,

With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale

LOCHIEL.

brae,

And the clan has a name that is nameless by day;
Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach!
Gather, gather, gather, etc.

Our signal for fight, that from monarchs we drew,
Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo!
Then haloo, Grigalach! haloo, Grigalach!
Haloo, haloo, haloo, Grigalach, etc.

-Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale; Glen Orchy's proud mountains, Coalchurn and

For never shall Albin a destiny meet,

So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat.
Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in

their gore,

Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,
Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,
While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,

her towers,

Glenstrae and Glenlyon no longer are ours:

We're landless, landless, landless, Grigalach!
Landless, landless, landless, etc.

But doomed and devoted by vassal and lord
Macgregor has still both his heart and his sword!
Then courage, courage, courage, Grigalach!
Courage, courage, courage, etc.

Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to
If they rob us of name, and pursue us with beagles,

fame.

SCOTLAND.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

O CALEDONIA! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band

Through the depths of Loch Katrine the steed | How, in the name of soldiership and sense,

ENGLAND, with all thy faults, I love thee still,
My country and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy
clime

Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed
With dripping rains, or withered by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flower, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage and her myrtle bowers.
To shake thy senate, and from height sublime
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task:
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart
As any thunderer there. And I can feel
Thy follies too; and with a just disdain
Frown at effeminates whose very looks
Reflect dishonor on the land I love.

Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth

And tender as a girl, all essenced o'er
With odors, and as profligate as sweet,
Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight, when such as
these

Presume to lay their hand upon the ark

Of her magnificent and awful cause?

Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In every clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children. Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.

WILLIAM COWPER.

RULE BRITANNIA!

WHEN Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,

And guardian angels sing the strain :

Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the wayes!
Britons never will be slaves.

The nations not so blest as thee,

Must, in their turn, to tyrants fall;

Whilst thou shalt flourish, great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Rule Britannia! etc.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blasts that tear thy skies Serve but to root thy native oak. Rule Britannia! etc.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to hurl thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
And work their woe - but thy renown.
Rule Britannia ! etc.

To thee belongs the rural reign;

Thy cities shall with commerce shine; All thine shall be the subject main, And every shore encircle thine. Rule Britannia! etc.

The Muses, still with Freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
Rule Britannia! etc.

JAMES THOMSON.

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We'd fight for our right to the island; We'd give them enough of the island; Invaders should just bite once at the dust, But not a bit more of the island.

THOMAS DIBDIN.

THE LAND, BOYS, WE LIVE IN.

FROM "THE MYRTLE AND THE VINE."

SINCE our foes to invade us have long been preparing,

'T is clear they consider we've something worth sharing,

And for that mean to visit our shore ;

It behooves us, however, with spirit to meet 'em, And though 't will be nothing uncommon to beat 'em,

We must try how they'll take it once more: So fill, fill your glasses, be this the toast given, Here's England forever, the land, boys, we live in!.

So fill, fill your glasses, be this the toast given,Here's England forever, huzza!

Here's a health to our tars on the wide ocean ranging,

Perhaps even now some broadsides are exchanging,

We'll on shipboard and join in the fight; And when with the foe we are firmly engaging, Till the fire of our guns lulls the sea in its raging, On our country we 'll think with delight. So fill, fill your glasses, etc.

The Genius of our clime From his pine-embattled Shall hail the guest sublime While the Tritons of the With their conchs the kindred le claim.

Then let the world combine,
O'er the main our naval line
Like the Milky Way shall sl
Bright in fame !

Though ages long have past
Since our Fathers left thei
Their pilot in the blast,

O'er untravelled seas to roa

Yet lives the blood of England in
And shall we not proclaim
That blood of honest fame
Which no tyranny can tame
By its chains?

While the language free and
Which the Bard of Avon s
In which our Milton told

How the vault of heaven r When Satan, blasted, fell with his While this, with reverence m Ten thousand echoes greet, From rock to rock repeat Round our coast;

While the manners, while the

That mould a nation's soul, Still cling around our hearts, Between let Ocean roll,

On that throne where once Alfred in glory was Our joint communion breaking wit

Yet still from either beach
The voice of blood shall reach,
More audible than speech,
"We are One."

WASHING

AMERICA.

O MOTHER of a mighty race,
Yet lovely in thy youthful grad
The elder dames, thy haughty
Admire and hate thy blooming
With words of shame
And taunts of scorn they join t

For on thy cheeks the glow is s
That tints thy morning hills wi
Thy step, the wild deer's rust
Within thy woods are not more
Thy hopeful eye
Is bright as thine own sunny sk

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