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. XVII 'At once there rose so wild a yell Forth from the pass in tumult driven, The archery appear: 420 430 For life! for life! their flight they ply- 440 The spearmen's twilight wood ?"Down, down," cried Mar, "your lances down! And closely shouldering side to side, The bristling ranks the onset bide.- 450 "We'll quell the savage mountaineer, As their Tinchel cows the game! They come as fleet as forest deer, We'll drive them back as tame." XVIII 'Bearing before them in their course Above the tide, each broadsword bright But Moray wheeled his rearward rank Of horsemen on Clan-Alpine's flank,- 470 "My banner-men, advance! 66 I see," he cried, "their columnu shake. Upon them with the lance!"— 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 borneWhere, 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, XIX 'Now westward rolls the battle's din, 490 '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 530 540 Their booty wont to pile;- He plunged him in the wave: A mingled echo gave ; The Saxons shout, their mate to cheer, 550 The helpless females scream for fear, "Revenge! revenge!" the Saxons cried, 590 Rung forth a truce-note high and wide, As if some pang his heart-strings wrenched; Is sternly fixed on vacancy; 600 "It was while struggling with such languor, on one lovely evening of this autumn [1817], that he composed the following beautiful verses. They mark the very spot of their birth, -namely, the then naked height overhanging the northern side of the Cauldshields Loch, from which Melrose Abbey to the eastward, and the hills of Ettrick and Yarrow to the west, are now visible over a wide range of rich woodland, all the work of the poet's hand.' Lockhart's Life, chap. xxxix. THE sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill In Ettrick's vale is sinking sweet; The westland wind is hush and still, The lake lies sleeping at my feet. Yet not the landscape to mine eye Bears those bright hues that once it bore, Though evening with her richest dye Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore. |