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Ah! hapless dame! no sire bewails, No friend thy wretched fate deplores, No kindred voice with rapture hails

Thy steps within a stranger's doors.

7.

Perish the fiend! whose iron heart
To fair Affection's truth unknown,
Bids her he fondly lov'd depart,

Unpitied, helpless, and alone;
Who ne'er unlocks with silver key,2
The milder treasures of his soul;
May such a friend be far from me,
And Ocean's storms between us roll!
[First published, June, 1807.]

LACHIN Y GAIR.3

I.

AWAY, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!

In you let the minions of luxury rove; Restore me the rocks, where the snowflake reposes,

Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:

Yet, Caledonia, belov'd are thy mountains,

Round their white summits though elements war;

Though cataracts foam 'stead of smoothflowing fountains,

I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na
Garr.

1 Medea, who accompanied Jason to Corinth, was deserted by him for the daughter of Creon, king of that city. The chorus, from which this is taken, here addresses Medea; though a considerable liberty is taken with the original, by expanding the idea, as also in some other parts of the translation.

2 The original is καθαρὰν ἀνοίξαντα κλῇδα operov, literally "disclosing the bright key of the mind."

3 Lachin y Gair, or, as it is pronounced in the Erse, Loch na Garr, towers proudly pre-eminent in the Northern Highlands, near Invercauld. One of our modern tourists mentions it as the highest mountain, perhaps, in Great Britain. Be this as it may, it is certainly one of the most sublime and picturesque amongst our "Caledonian Alps." Its appearance is of a dusky hue, but the summit is the seat of eternal snows. Near Lachin y Gair I spent some of the early part of my life, the recollection of which has given birth to the following stanzas. [Prefixed to the poem in Hours of Idleness and Poems Original and Translated.]

2.

Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wander'd:

My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid; 1

On chieftains, long perish'd, my memory ponder'd,

As daily I strode through the pinecover'd glade;

I sought not my home, till the day's dying glory

Gave place to the rays of the bright

polar star;

For fancy was cheer'd by traditional story, Disclos'd by the natives of dark Loch na Garr.

3.

"Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices

Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?"

Surely, the soul of the hero rejoices, And rides on the wind, o'er his own Highland vale!

Round Loch na Garr, while the stormy mist gathers,

Winter presides in his cold icy car: Clouds, there, encircle the forms of my Fathers;

They dwell in the tempests of dark
Loch na Garr.

4.

"Ill starr'd, though brave, did no visions foreboding

Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?"

Ah! were you destin'd to die at Culloden,3

Victory crown'd not your fall with applause:

1 This word is erroneously pronounced plad: the proper pronunciation (according to the Scotch) is shown by the orthography.

I allude here to my maternal ancestors, "the Gordons," many of whom fought for the unfortunate Prince Charles, better known by the name of the Pretender. This branch was nearly allied by blood, as well as attachment, to the Stuarts. George, the second Earl of Huntly, married the Princess Annabella Stuart, daughter of James I. of Scotland. By her he left four sons: the third, Sir William Gordon, I have the honour to claim as one of my progenitors.

3 Whether any perished in the Battle of Cullo

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