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Of the pine-tree and oak sleeping vast in the gloom, The kings of the forest disturb'd in their tomb.

E'en now, in the pomp of their prime, I behold
O'erhanging the desert the forests of old!
So gorgeous their verdure, so solemn their shade,
Like the heavens above them, they never may fade.
The sunlight is on them-in silence they sleep-
A glimmering glow, like the breast of the deep,
When the billows scarce heave in the calmness of

morn.

-Down the pass of Glen-Etive the tempest is borne,
And the hill-side is swinging, and roars with a sound
In the heart of the forest embosom'd profound.
Till all in a moment the tumult is o'er,

And the mountain of thunder is still as the shore
When the sea is at ebb; not a leaf nor a breath
To disturb the wild solitude, steadfast as death.
From his eyrie the eagle hath soar'd with a scream,
And I wake on the edge of the cliff from my dream;
-Where now is the light of thy far-beaming brow?
Fleet son of the wilderness! where art thou now?
-Again o'er yon crag thou return'st to my sight,
Like the horns of the moon from a cloud of the night!
Serene on thy travel-as soul in a dream-
Thou needest no bridge o'er the rush of the stream.
With thy presence the pine-grove is fill'd, as with light,
And the caves, as thou passest, one moment are bright.
Through the arch of the rainbow that lies on the rock
'Mid the mist stealing up from the cataract's shock,
Thou fling'st thy bold beauty, exulting and free,
O'er a pit of grim blackness, that roars like the sea.

His voyage is o'er !—As if struck by a spell,
He motionless stands in the hush of the dell;
There softly and slowly sinks down on his breast,
In the midst of his pastime enamour'd of rest.
A stream in a clear pool that endeth his race—
A dancing ray chain'd to one sunshiny place—
A cloud by the winds to calm solitude driven—
A hurricane dead in the silence of heaven!

Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee! Magnificent prison enclosing the free!

With rock-wall encircled, with precipice crown'd;
Which, awoke by the sun, thou canst clear at a bound.
'Mid the fern and the heather kind Nature doth keep
One bright spot of green for her favourite's sleep ;
And close to that covert, as clear as the skies

When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies,
Where the creature at rest can his image behold
Looking up through the radiance, as bright and as bold!
How lonesome! how wild! yet the wildness is rife
With the stir of enjoyment—the spirit of life.
The glad fish leaps up in the heart of the lake,
Whose depths, at the sudden plunge, sullenly quake!
Elate on the fern-branch the grasshopper sings,
And away in the midst of his roundelay springs;
'Mid the flowers of the heath, not more bright than
himself,

The wild bee is busy, a musical elf—

Then starts from his labour, unwearied and gay,
And, circling the antlers, booms far far away.
While high up the mountains, in silence remote,
The cuckoo unseen is repeating his note,

And mellowing echo, on watch in the skies,
Like a voice from some loftier climate replies.
With wide-branching antlers a guard to his breast,
There lies the wild creature, even stately in rest,
'Mid the grandeur of nature, composed and serene,
And proud in his heart of the mountainous scene,
He lifts his calm eye to the eagle and raven,

At noon sinking down on smooth wings to their haven, As if in his soul the bold animal smiled

To his friends of the sky, the joint heirs of the wild.

Yes! fierce looks thy nature, ev'n hush'd in repose-
In the depth of thy desert regardless of foes.
Thy bold antlers call on the hunter afar

With a haughty defiance to come to the war!
No outrage is war to a creature like thee!
The bugle horn fills thy wild spirit with glee,
As thou bearest thy neck on the wings of the wind,
And the laggardly gaze-hound is toiling behind.
In the beams of thy forehead that glitter with death,
In feet that draw power from the touch of the heath,-
In the wide-raging torrent that lends thee its roar,-
In the cliff that once trod must be trodden no more,-
Thy trust-'mid the dangers that threaten thy reign!—
-But what if the stag on the mountain be slain ?
On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay,
Like a victor that falls at the close of the day-
While hunter and hound in their terror retreat
From the death that is spurn'd from his furious feet:
And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies,
As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies.

High life of a hunter! he meets on the hill

The new-waken'd daylight, so bright and so still;

And feels, as the clouds of the morning unroll,
The silence, the splendour, ennoble his soul.
'Tis his o'er the mountains to stalk like a ghost,
Enshrouded with mist, in which nature is lost,
Till he lifts up his eyes, and flood, válley, and height,
In one moment all swim in an ocean of light;
While the sun, like a glorious banner unfurl'd,
Seems to wave o'er a new, more magnificent world.
'Tis his-by the mouth of some cavern his seat-
The lightning of heaven to hold at his feet,

While the thunder below him that growls from the

cloud,

To him comes an echo more awfully loud.

When the clear depth of noontide, with glittering motion,

O'erflows the lone glens-an aerial ocean

When the earth and the heavens, in union profound,
Lie blended in beauty that knows not a sound-
As his eyes in the sunshiny solitude close
'Neath a rock of the desert in dreaming repose,
He sees, in his slumbers, such visions of old
As his wild Gaelic songs to his infancy told;

O'er the mountains a thousand plumed hunters are

borne,

And he starts from his dream at the blast of the horn.
Yes! child of the desert! fit quarry were thou
For the hunter that came with a crown on his brow,-
By princes attended with arrow and spear,

In their white-tented camp, for the warfare of deer.
In splendour the tents on the green summit stood,
And brightly they shone from the glade in the wood,
And, silently built by a magical spell,

The pyramid rose in the depth of the dell.

All mute was the palace of Lochy that day,
When the king and his nobles-a gallant array—
To Gleno or Glen-Etive came forth in their pride,
And a hundred fierce stags in their solitude died.
Not lonely and single they pass'd o'er the height-
But thousands swept by in their hurricane-flight;
And bow'd to the dust in their trampling tread
Was the plumage on many a warrior's head.

—“ Fall down on your faces!-the herd is at hand!"
-And onward they came like the sea o'er the sand;
Like the snow from the mountain when loosen'd by rain,
And rolling along with a crash to the plain;
Like a thunder-split oak-tree, that falls in one shock,
With his hundred wide arms from the top of the rock,
Like the voice of the sky when the black cloud is near,
So sudden, so loud, came the tempest of Deer.
Wild mirth of the desert! fit pastime for kings!
Which still the rude Bard in his solitude sings.
Oh reign of magnificence! vanish'd for ever!
Like music dried up in the bed of a river,
Whose course hath been changed! yet my soul can

survey

The clear cloudless morn of that glorious day.

Yes! the wide silent forest is loud as of yore,
And the far-ebbed grandeur rolls back to the shore.
I wake from my trance!-lo! the sun is declining!
And the Black-mount afar in his lustre is shining.
-One soft golden gleam ere the twilight prevail !
Then down let me sink to the cot in the dale,
Where sings the fair maid to the viol so sweet,
Or the floor is alive with her white twinkling feet,
Down, down like a bird to the depth of the dell !
-Vanish'd creature! I bid thy fair image farewell!

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