'Hear, gentle friends, ere yet for me
Ye break the bands of fealty.
My life, my honor, and my cause,
I tender free to Scotland's laws.
Are these so weak as must require
The aid of your misguided ire?
Or if I suffer causeless wrong,
Is then my selfish rage so strong,
My sense of public weal so low,
That, for mean vengeance on a foe,
Those cords of love I should unbind
Which knit my country and my kind?
O no! Believe, in yonder tower
It will not soothe my captive hour,
To know those spears our foes should dread
For me in kindred gore are red:
To know, in fruitless brawl begun,
For me that mother wails her son,
For me that widow's mate expires,
For me that orphans weep their sires,
That patriots mourn insulted laws,
And curse the Douglas for the cause.
O let your patience ward such ill,
And keep your right to love me still!'
The crowd's wild fury sunk again
In tears, as tempests melt in rain.
With lifted hands and eyes, they prayed
For blessings on his generous head
Who for his country felt alone,
And prized her blood beyond his own.
Old men upon the verge of life
Blessed him who stayed the civil strife;
And mothers held their babes on high,
The self-devoted Chief to spy,
Triumphant over wrongs and ire,
To whom the prattlers owed a sire.
Even the rough soldier's heart was moved;
As if behind some bier beloved,
With trailing arms and drooping head, 810
The Douglas up the hill he led,
And at the Castle's battled verge,
With sighs resigned his honored charge.
The offended Monarch rode apart,
With bitter thought and swelling heart,
And would not now vouchsafe again
Through Stirling streets to lead his train.
'O Lenox, who would wish to rule
This changeling crowd, this common fool?
Hear'st thou,' he said, 'the loud acclaim 820
With which they shout the Douglas name?
With like acclaim the vulgar throat
Strained for King James their morning
Submitted to our kingdom's laws.
The tidings of their leaders lost
Will soon dissolve the mountain host,
Nor would we that the vulgar feel,
For their Chief's crimes, avenging steel.
Bear Mar our message, Braco, fly!'
He turned his steed, -My liege, I hie,
Yet ere I cross this lily lawn
I fear the broadswords will be drawn.'
The turf the flying courser spurned,
And to his towers the King returned.
Ill with King James's mood that day
Suited gay feast and minstrel lay;
Soon were dismissed the courtly throng,
And soon cut short the festal song.
Nor less upon the saddened town
The evening sunk in sorrow down.
The burghers spoke of civil jar,
Of rumored feuds and mountain war,
Of Moray, Mar, and Roderick Dhu,
All up in arms;- the Douglas too,
They mourned him pent within the hold,
'Where stout Earl William was of old.'-
And there his word the speaker stayed,
And finger on his lip he laid,
Or pointed to his dagger blade.
But jaded horsemen from the west
At evening to the Castle pressed,
And busy talkers said they bore
Tidings of fight on Katrine's shore;
At noon the deadly fray begun,
And lasted till the set of sun.
Thus giddy rumor shook the town,
Till closed the Night her pennons brown.
THE DEATH OF RODERICK DHU
BATTLE OF BEAL' AN DUINE 'The Minstrel came once more to view The eastern ridge of Benvenue, For ere he parted he would say Farewell to lovely Loch AchrayWhere shall he find, in foreign land, So lone a lake, so sweet a strand!There is no breeze upon the fern, No ripple on the lake, Upon her eyry nods the erne,
The deer has sought the brake; The small birds will not sing aloud,
The springing trout lies still, So darkly glooms yon thunder-cloud, That swathes, as with a purple shroud, Benledi's distant hill.
Is it the thunder's solemn sound,
That mutters deep and dread,
Or echoes from the groaning ground
The warrior's measured tread?
Is it the lightning's quivering glance
That on the thicket streams,
Or do they flash on spear and lance
The sun's retiring beams?
I see the dagger-crest of Mar,
I see the Moray's silver star,
Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war,
That up the lake comes winding far!
To hero bound for battle-strife,
Or bard of martial lay,
'T were worth ten years of peaceful life, One glance at their array!
Or wave their flags abroad; Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake,
That shadowed o'er their road. Their vaward scouts no tidings bring, Can rouse no lurking foe, Nor spy a trace of living thing,
Save when they stirred the roe; The host moves like a deep-sea wave, Where rise no rocks its pride to brave, High-swelling, dark, and slow. The lake is passed, and now they gain A narrow and a broken plain, Before the Trosachs' rugged jaws; And here the horse and spearmen pause, While, to explore the dangerous glen, Dive through the pass the archer-men.
'At once there rose so wild a yell
Within that dark and narrow dell,
As all the fiends from heaven that fell
Had pealed the banner-cry of hell!
Forth from the pass in tumult driven,
Like chaff before the wind of heaven,
The archery appear:
For life! for life! their flight they ply -
And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry,
And plaids and bonnets waving high,
And broadswords flashing to the sky,
Are maddening in the rear.
Onward they drive in dreadful race,
Pursuers and pursued;
Before that tide of flight and chase,
How shall it keep its rooted place,
The spearmen's twilight wood? "Down, down," cried Mar, "your lances down!
Bear back both friend and foe!"-
Like reeds before the tempest's frown,
That serried grove of lances brown
At once lay levelled low;
I see," he cried, "their column shake. Now, gallants! for your ladies' sake,
Upon them with the lance!"The horsemen dashed among the rout,
As deer break through the broom; Their steeds are stout, their swords are out,
They soon make lightsome room. Clan-Alpine's best are backward borne Where, where was Roderick then! 480 One blast upon his bugle-horn
Were worth a thousand men. And refluent through the pass of fear The battle's tide was poured; Vanished the Saxon's struggling spear, Vanished the mountain-sword.
As Bracklinn's chasm, so black and steep, Receives her roaring linn,
As the dark caverns of the deep
Suck the wild whirlpool in,
So did the deep and darksome pass
Devour the battle's mingled mass;
None linger now upon the plain,
Save those who ne'er shall fight again.
To the deep lake has given; Strange gusts of wind from mountain glen Swept o'er the lake, then sunk again. I heeded not the eddying surge, Mine eye but saw the Trosachs' gorge, 510 Mine ear but heard that sullen sound, Which like an earthquake shook the ground,
And spoke the stern and desperate strife
That parts not but with parting life,
Seeming, to minstrel ear, to toll
The dirge of many a passing soul.
Nearer it comes — the dim-wood glen
The martial flood disgorged again,
But not in mingled tide;
The plaided warriors of the North
High on the mountain thunder forth
And overhang its side,
While by the lake below appears
The darkening cloud of Saxon spears.
At weary bay each shattered band,
Eying their foemen, sternly stand;
Their banners stream like tattered sail,
That flings its fragments to the gale,
And broken arms and disarray
Marked the fell havoc of the day.
Viewing the mountain's ridge askance, The Saxons stood in sullen trance, Till Moray pointed with his lance,
And cried: "Behold yon isle! See! none are left to guard its strand But women weak, that wring the hand: 'Tis there of yore the robber band
Their booty wont to pile;My purse, with bonnet-pieces store, To him will swim a bow-shot o'er, And loose a shallop from the shore. Lightly we'll tame the war-wolf then, Lords of his mate, and brood, and den." Forth from the ranks a spearman sprung, On earth his casque and corselet rung,
He plunged him in the wave:All saw the deed, the purpose knew, And to their clamors Benvenue
A mingled echo gave ;
The Saxons shout, their mate to cheer, 550
The helpless females scream for fear,
And yells for rage the mountaineer.
'T was then, as by the outery riven,
Poured down at once the lowering heaven:
A whirlwind swept Loch Katrine's breast,
Her billows reared their snowy crest.
Well for the swimmer swelled they high,
To mar the Highland marksman's eye;
For round him showered, mid rain and hail,
The vengeful arrows of the Gael.
560
In vain. He nears the isle - and lo!
His hand is on a shallop's bow.
Just then a flash of lightning came,
It tinged the waves and strand with flame;
I marked Duncraggan's widowed dame,
Behind an oak I saw her stand,
"Revenge! revenge!" the Saxons cried,
The Gaels' exulting shout replied.
Despite the elemental rage,
Again they hurried to engage ;
But, ere they closed in desperate fight,
Bloody with spurring came a knight,
Sprung from his horse, and from a crag 580
Waved 'twixt the hosts a milk-white flag.
Clarion and trumpet by his side
Rung forth a truce-note high and wide,
While, in the Monarch's name, afar
A herald's voice forbade the war,
For Bothwell's lord and Roderick bold
Were both, he said, in captive hold.'-
But here the lay made sudden stand,
The harp escaped the Minstrel's hand!
Oft had he stolen a glance, to spy
How Roderick brooked his minstrelsy:
At first, the Chieftain, to the chime,
With lifted hand kept feeble time;
That motion ceased, yet feeling strong
Varied his look as changed the song;
At length, no more his deafened ear
The minstrel melody can hear;
His face grows sharp,- his hands are
clenched,
As if some pang his heart-strings wrenched;
Set are his teeth, his fading eye
Is sternly fixed on vacancy;
Thus, motionless and moanless drew,
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