But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the war, What steed to the desert flies frantic and far? "T is 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; Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave. LOCHIEL. rock! But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, When Albin her claymore indignantly draws; When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd, Clanronald the dauntless, and Moray the proud, All plaided and plumed in their tartan array 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. Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive seer! Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn? Ah no! for a darker departure is near ; With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale LOCHIEL. Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale; Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe; fame! THOMAS CAMPBELL. SCOTLAND. FROM "THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL," CANTO VI O CALEDONIA! stern and wild, Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, That knits me to thy rugged strand? Sole friends thy woods and streams were left ; By Yarrow's stream still let me stray, ENGLAND. SIR WALTER SCOTT. FROM "THE TIMEPIECE": "THE TASK," BOOK 11. 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 How, in the name of soldiership and sense, Presume to lay their hand upon the ark And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own. WILLIAM COWPER THE ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND. WHEN mighty roast beef was the Englishman's food, It ennobled our hearts, and enriched our blood; Our soldiers were brave, and our courtiers were good. O, the Roast Beef of old England, But since we have learned from effeminate To eat their ragouts, as well as to dance, sance. O, the Roast Beef, etc. HENRY FIELDING. Our fathers of old were robust, stout, and strong. And kept open house with good cheer all day long, Which made their plump tenants rejoice in this song. O, the Roast Beef, etc. When good Queen Elizabeth sat on the throne, Ere coffee and tea, and such slip-slops, were known, The world was in terror, if e'en she did frown. O, the Roast Beef, etc. In those days, if fleets did presume on the main, Should England prosper, when such things, as O, then we had stomachs to eat and to fight, [The lake of Gougaune Barra, i, e. the hollow, or recess of St. Finn Bar, in the rugged territory of Ibh-Laoghaire (the O'Learys' country) in the west end of the county of Cork, is the parent of the There is woe in Oxford halls; there is wail in river Lee. Its waters embrace a small but verdant island of about Durham's stalls; half an acre in extent, which approaches its eastern shore. The lake, as its name implies, is situate in a deep hollow, surrounded on The Jesuit smites his bosom; the bishop rends every side (save the east, where its superabundant waters are dis his cope. charged) by vast and almost perpendicular mountains, whose dark inverted shadows are gloomily reflected in its still waters beneath.] THERE is a green island in lone Gougaune Barra, Where Allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow; In deep-valleyed Desmond — a thousand wild As, like some gay child, that sad monitor scorn- I too shall be gone; - but my name shall be ing, spoken It lightly laughs back to the laugh of the morning. When Erin awakes and her fetters are broken. Some minstrel will come, in the summer eve's And its zone of dark hills, - O, to see them all brightening, When the tempest flings out its red banner of lightning, gleaming, When Freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming, And bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion, And the waters rush down, mid the thunder's Where calm Avon-Buee seeks the kisses of ocean, Or plant a wild wreath, from the banks of that river, deep rattle, Like clans from their hills at the voice of the battle; And brightly the fire-crested billows are gleaming, O, where is the dwelling, in valley or highland, How oft, when the summer sun rested on Clara, by the ocean, And trod all thy wilds with a minstrel's devotion, And thought of thy bards, when assembling together, O'er the heart and the harp that are sleeping forever. JAMES JOSEPH CALLANAN. EXILE OF ERIN. THERE came to the beach a poor exile of Erin, To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill. In the cleft of thy rocks, or the depth of thy Where once, in the fire of his youthful emotion, heather; They fled from the Saxon's dark bondage and slaughter, And waked their last song by the rush of thy water. He sang the bold anthem of Erin go bragh. Sad is my fate! said the heart-broken stranger; High sons of the lyre, O, how proud was the Never again in the green sunny bowers feeling, To think while alone through that solitude steal- Though loftier minstrels green Erin can number, The songs even Echo forgot on her mountains; Where my forefathers lived shall I spend the Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers, Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken, more! Where the mist and the rain o'er their beauty O cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me were creeping! Least bard of the hills, - were it mine to inherit Did your mantle of song fling its radiance around me, Still, still in those wilds might young Liberty rally, 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 wildwood? And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all? And send her strong shout over mountain and O my sad heart! long abandoned by pleasure, valley, The star of the west might yet rise in its glory, And the land that was darkest be brightest in story. Why did it dote on a fast-fading treasure? measure, But rapture and beauty they cannot recall. |