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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE 
 
 PILGRIM OF THE HEBRIDES: 
 
 A LAY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE NORTH COUNTRIE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THREE DAYS AT KILLARNEY." 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR 
 
 LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN. 
 
 PATERNOSTEH-noW. 
 
 1830.
 
 H 
 
 -b 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 When among the revisors of the following pages 
 are mentioned the distinguished names of Bowles 
 and Crabbe, the Reader will at once infer, what 
 essential benefit must have been derived from 
 their masterly observations. 
 
 It is impossible to visit the Hebrides and 
 Highlands without calling to mind the '' Lord of 
 the Isles," the " Lady of the Lake," and their
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 illustrious Author ; *' uno di que' fenomini die 
 compariscono di repente nel cielo, e dopo breve 
 giro s' ascondono, e lo lasciauo talvolta per secoli 
 interi colla scarsa luce delle stelle comuni." — 
 
 TO HIM, THEREFORE, 
 
 TO THE POET OF NATURE, 
 THE PAINTER OF MANNERS AND THE PASSIONS, 
 
 LET ME INSCRIBE 
 
 "THE PILGRIM OF THE HEBRIDES."
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 CANTO I. TO STAFFA . 
 
 CANTO II. STAFFA TO FORT-WILLIAM . 
 
 CANTO III. FOHT-WILLIAM TO EDINBURGH 
 
 I' A G e 
 1 
 
 7 
 47 
 
 87 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 SCOTLAM) HKVISITKI). 
 
 CANTO I. lO INVERAUY 
 
 CANTO II. TO SRYE AND INVERNESS 
 
 CANTO III. INVERNESS TO EDINBLHGH 
 
 l.!7 
 181 
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTUAIIONS 
 SONNETS . 
 
 Til 
 •I'M
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFF A,
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 I. 
 
 Ere yet we launch on river, loch, or sea. 
 Grant to the * Cartlane-Crags a brief delay. 
 And cautious clinging fast to rock and tree, 
 Down to the' abyss explore the dizzy way. 
 Where overhead impends the majesty 
 Of forest and of precipices gray. 
 That silent praise the King who reigns alone, 
 Sun, moon, and stars his footstool, and all space his 
 throne. 
 
 * Caitlanc-Crags, near Lanark. Among them Wallace is said 
 to have been occasionally concealed. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 PUOLOGUE. 
 
 II. 
 
 'T is thus in imag-e only we descry 
 His glory ; yet let none believe his ear 
 Is heavy, or unapt the' All-seeing- eye 
 To mark our homage : sin alone and fear 
 Have spread the cloud between us. Lift on high 
 Your hearts, the voice of melody uprear ; 
 Let righteousness and truth run down amain. 
 And Charity o'erflow like rivers after rain. 
 
 III. 
 
 Such purposes the solitude and awe. 
 The chasm, the hanging-wood, the cliff inspire. 
 When thus to mount or desert we withdraw. 
 And wait the touch of that celestial fire 
 By Seraph brought, what time Isaiah saw 
 Jehovah's throne ; but soon our spirits tire. 
 Unable to endure the blaze of light. 
 Unable to sustain the' illimitable flight.
 
 CARTLANE-CRAGS. 5 
 
 IV. 
 
 And earthward we for recreation turn, 
 'J'o muse on deeds of chivalry and fame, 
 When here tlie patriot-champion made sojourn. 
 And to these wilds bequeathed the deathless name 
 Of Him for whom the Muse and History mourn, 
 Of Him who from her lethargy and shame 
 Aroused his country into power and pride, 
 For freedom toiled and bled, for freedom fought and 
 died ! 
 
 cartlane;-crags. 
 
 Whose is the lightning speed, the stately form. 
 That like a meteor rushes up the steep. 
 While dim the moon, and dark the midnight hour. 
 
 And ambushed in the cavern, marks how deep 
 Beneath his feet the bloodhounds of the war. 
 And curses of defeated vengeance sweep ?
 
 CARTLANE^CRAGS. 
 
 'Tis he— the Wallace .'—the bright Morning-Star 
 Of Liberty, the self-devoted Friend 
 Of Scotland and of Bruce : no trophied car 
 
 Awaits thee, no triumphal shouts attend. 
 Brave chieftain ! thine the prilgrimage of pain. 
 The life of peril, and the' untimely end. 
 
 But go in peace : thou hast not struck in vain : 
 
 Die happy : sundered is thy Country's chain.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 From Glasgow bound for the basaltic shore 
 Of Staffa, to the Bromielaw our guide 
 Convoys us, where the' impatient steam-boats roar 
 And hiss like fiery dragons on the tide : 
 A prodigy, which not Ismeno's lore 
 Nor Lombard fable gave o'er seas to glide ; 
 Such cabala hath now to distance flung 
 Whatever Tasso feigned, or Ariosto sung.
 
 8 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 II. 
 
 The sun from his meridian stoops : the bell 
 Tolls one ; " Cast off," the Captain gives command ; 
 And many a hand and bonnet wave farewel. 
 As swinging round, the vessel quits the strand. 
 Her spleenful hissing silenced by the spell 
 Of more than necromantic art, the wand 
 That, while the billows chafe and foam below. 
 Beats (like a giant's pulse) a deep, strong stroke and 
 slow. 
 
 III. 
 
 A charmed course, that recks not of the gale. 
 By Renfrew (erst Randvara called) we steer; 
 And where the monastery's cloister pale 
 Responded once to the revolving year 
 With chant and hymn, now engines huge exhale 
 In volumes through the' incumbered atmosphere 
 Smoke-clouds that, blurring heaven's expansion, 
 lower 
 ,0'er Paisley town, and veil dome, factory, and tower.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Dundas is left behind : the wooded steep 
 Dunbuck (in antique chronicle renowned) 
 Heaves his Titanian stature from the deep, 
 And menaces the sky : in blue profound 
 The waters underneath with bolder sweep 
 Gradual dilate, disdainful of their bound, 
 While keener breezes from the Highland line 
 Descend, and the fresh wave is lost in ocean brine. 
 
 V. 
 
 So should the cooling airs of wisdom blow 
 On our advancing years, and 'swage the heat 
 Of passion ; so eternity should flow 
 Throughout the infinitude of thought, and meet 
 All schemes, illusions, toys of earth below, 
 And roll them backward, drive them from the seat 
 Of memory, and swallow every care 
 111, faith contemplative, and vohemence of prayer.
 
 10 VOYAGE TO STAFF A. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Dunbritton next (Balclutha called of old) 
 Beside her doubled-headed rock reclines. 
 Demurely couched : there subtle artists mould 
 The sand that vitrified, transparent shines 
 In many a Proteus form : blown out, or rolled 
 On surface plane, the crystalline combines. 
 In plate that cot or palace lights and warms, 
 Graces the genial board, or gives back beauty^s charms. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And now the mighty Estuary we gain 
 Whose waves interminable intervene. 
 Repelling far the' horizon's Alpine train. 
 The Cowal-Hills, Argyle's rude * Bowling-green, 
 Ben-Arthur, and the Arroquhar hills that bind 
 Loch-Lomond's northern limb ; and dimly seen 
 In distance dun, the ruin-cloven isle 
 Of Arran, grim with crag, and mountain, and defile. 
 
 * A range of rugged mountains so called.
 
 CLYDE. 1 1 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Like a huge army they begird us round ; 
 In vague mysterious grandeur through the blue 
 Thin haze that fills the hemisphere's profound, 
 Their towery outline raising into view 
 Sheer from the flood ; their intermediate bound 
 Beneath our vision sunk, or with the hue 
 Of distant water blending, while the day 
 Into the pale obscure of twilight lades away. 
 
 CLYDE. 
 
 Fiook down with joy, ye mountains ! to behold 
 In ocean-like magnificence the Clyde, 
 Populous with fleets of j)eace or war, unfold 
 His vastness ; from Dunbritton's bulwarketl pride 
 
 To where (lone champion !) Ailsa braves the tide 
 That everlastingly in battery rolled 
 Against him, vain recoils. The winds subside. 
 The day-star sinks, and every cloud of gold
 
 12 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 Or purple saddens to the twilight dim 
 Of meditation'.s hour. Begin the song, 
 Ben-Lomond, let the summits thunder-riven 
 
 Of Arran listen, and repeat the hymn 
 
 Wide o'er the' Atlantic wave ; and glide along 
 In harmony of praise, ye host of heaven ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 See yonder canopy of smoke and cloud 
 Like Ephialtes load the groaning air, 
 x\nd with the murkiness of tempest shroud 
 Port-Glasgow to the left ; while on we fare 
 To Greenock, ever bristling with a crowd 
 Of masts and shipping, caracks rich and rare 
 From either Ind, from Tro])ic, or the Pole, 
 Wherever keel can plough, wherever seas can roll.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 13 
 
 In all the bravery of an Eastern bride 
 Yon * vessel bids her fluttering streamers greet 
 The wanton breezes : but from side to side 
 Windward with frequent tack condemned to beat. 
 Sees our swart bulk and chimney-mast deride 
 Her canvas pomp ; and with unnumbered feet. 
 Like a huge centipede, by night and day, 
 Despite of wind or tide, resistless force her way. 
 
 XL 
 
 Long may the paddle-pliers of the deep. 
 The children of philosophy and steam, 
 The balance and the keys of commerce keep, 
 And waft the rhymer to his destined theme : 
 But let them not with crimson banners sweep 
 The billows, nor of war and conquest dream. 
 Lest valve and wheel and piston rue the hour 
 That first engendered guile, and hatched the lust of 
 power. 
 
 * She was carrying oul I^ord Dalhousie to liis Ciovcrnnifnt of 
 Canada.
 
 14 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 XII. 
 
 By art and nature emulous bedig-ht 
 St. Helen's and Roseneath in verdure smile. 
 And gild the glimmering prospect on the right 
 With pomp, and architecture, and Argyle. 
 Rothesay succeeds, scarce seen in fading light, 
 Bute's old metropolis, wherein erewhile 
 The third King Robert deigned his court to hold. 
 With masque and tournament, fair dames and warriors 
 bold. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Loch-Streven's gorge lurks on the left unseen. 
 So dense the shades of early dusk are spread 
 Ere yet the moon in pity intervene, 
 And from her cloudy pharos round us shed 
 Her beacon ray, as on we glide serene, 
 The firmamental concave overhead. 
 And underneath us ocean's ebb and flow ; 
 Height measureless above, and depth unknown below.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFF A. 15 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Cautious, into the Kyles of Bute we wind. 
 Where continent and island, with a chain 
 Of rock before, beside us, and behind, 
 In curving frith imprison close the main. 
 Belated thus, in seeming lake confined. 
 The place, the hour, the darkness fill the brain 
 With fumes of superstition, dreams of eld, 
 And images of fear by ftincy's eye beheld.* 
 
 XV. 
 
 Through moist and dry, wide wandering over earth. 
 From eastern suns and equinoctial line, 
 A thousand fiends have feigned celestial birth. 
 And in these realms * usurped a name divine : 
 For in what region need they fear a dearth 
 Of worshippers, when every where a shrine 
 They meet ; and in each heart dominion liold 
 Ambition, pleasure, pride, wrath, envy, lust of gold ? 
 
 * That the oriental woibhip of Buddha &c. liad spread to tlio 
 Hebrides, is shevva in the Hev. G. S. Faber's admirable work on 
 the origin of Pagan Idolatry.
 
 16 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 No longer in Geclrosia would they dwell, 
 In Persia's mountains, or Arabia's wild, 
 But westward flew ; with omen, oracle. 
 And pageant of idolatry beguiled 
 Europe's remotest bounds, and cast their spell 
 On Caledonia's islands, therefore styled 
 Ebudas ; * and where'er we look around. 
 The recordsof their power and worship still are found. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Here Arhan, Ila, Cola, Budd, and more 
 Than verse can catalogue, memorial claim 
 Even yet, and leave on many a lonely shore 
 Still unremoved, the signet of their name. 
 Still uneffaced the mythologic lore 
 Of flicrht and transformation, and the fame 
 Of kingdoms plunged beneath the billows green, 
 And never but by bard or the rapt votary seen. 
 
 * From Buddha.
 
 SLUMBERER Of THE HEBRIDES. 17 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Borne on the floating ark from Indian clime 
 To banishment amid the Hebrid isles. 
 Imprisoned Cronus * waits the sign and time 
 Of retribution, and with sleep beguiles 
 The doomed delay: but woe betide the crime 
 Of him whose footstep or whose eye defiles 
 (Though but by chance) the miscreated gloom 
 Where fiends and demogorgon watch the' Avatar's 
 doom. 
 
 SLUMBERER OF THE HEBRIDES. 
 
 Say, in what island-cave the giant form 
 
 Sleeps in the trance of centuries, and the chain 
 Of destiny, while ocean and the storm 
 
 Keep vigil with the visionary train 
 
 Of demon-guards ? Ye mysteries of the dead, 
 If there be pity, warn from your domain 
 
 * See the traveller Demetrius ; who is cited by Plutarch, in his 
 Treatise on tiie Failure of Oracles. 
 
 C
 
 18 SLUMBERER OF THE HEBRIDES. 
 
 My wandering — warn me from the precincts dread, 
 Wherein the circle and the stone of power 
 Forbid the pressure of unholy tread. 
 
 But, ah ! what precipices round me tower 
 In chaos, like the monumental mound 
 Of perished worlds. Behold the place and hour 
 
 Of fate ; the' accurst and interdicted ground — 
 Whence no return. The mountain-spirit moans 
 And trembles in his nethermost profound. 
 
 The sun is veiled, the desolation groans. 
 
 And rocks and billows thunder out the doom, 
 " Rash mortal ! to the desert yield thy bones. 
 
 Be that unfathomable lake thy tomb." 
 
 'T is done — strange horror stiffens every limb. 
 And nature sinks into the spectral gloom 
 
 Of night and sepulture. The cliffs are dim. 
 They fade, they vanish from my closing eye. 
 The heavens and earth in airy circles swim ; 
 
 Oblivion covers all — one parting sigh. 
 
 And life hath vanished in eternity !
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 19 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Emerging to Loch-Fyne, we greet the boon 
 Of wider surface and more level shore. 
 Admitting free the glimpses of tlie moon 
 Till all the curling flood be silvered o'er. 
 The dance begins; but me (a listless loon) 
 The clouds and phosphorescent surges more 
 Detain at gaze, till sleep weigh down my head, 
 A coil of rope my pillow, and the deck my bed. 
 
 XX. 
 
 'I'he revel flits before my drowsy eye, 
 The screech of bagpipe lessens on my ear. 
 And more than half of dream and lethargy 
 Is blent with all I seem to see and hear. 
 Till now the car of Night from zenith high 
 Declining, westward speeds in full career; 
 When skiey influences no more befriend, 
 Clouds gather, winds veer south, and ruthless rains 
 descend. c 2
 
 20 LOCH-FYNE. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Nor choice remains, save choice of evil plight 
 On deck half overwhelmed in pelting shower, 
 Or in the cabin reft of air and light. 
 The tissue such of life ; time and the hour 
 With misadventure chequering all delight. 
 But patience be our speed : we still have power 
 To carol care and doleful dumps away. 
 And whistle to the wind and waves our roundelay. 
 
 LOCH-FYNE. 
 
 Silence and loveliness divide the calm. 
 Of night, and cheerily we float along, 
 The season's fervour tempered by the balm 
 
 Of breeziness and shade ; the dance, the song 
 Beguiling time, while harbour, town, and spire 
 Flit phantom-like away in cloudly throng.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 21 
 
 And as the stately shores of Bute retire, 
 Loch-Fyne receives us, rippling all around 
 In ever-varying" gleams of lambent fire. 
 
 The frolic Genii of the deep, that bound 
 Athwart the wave, invoking mist and rain 
 On such as with the pipe's unlicensed sound 
 
 Or merriment of middle earth profane 
 
 Their carnival amid tlie haunted main. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The moon, at random wandering, hides her head. 
 Where rack and drizzle scud before the squall. 
 Darkness and storm the welkin overspread, 
 A sound of woe is in the' aerial hall ; 
 Wliile from their watery or tlieir vapoury bed 
 The meteoric kings each other call. 
 Stir up the turbulence, condense the gloom. 
 And mutter o'er our l>ark the words of wrath and 
 doom.
 
 22 VOYAGE TO STAFFyV. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The sprites and elements obey the strain ; 
 And all the choleric vassals of the spell 
 With saturating drench invade the plain. 
 The fields inundate, and the ditches swell : 
 Rain, rain, incessant rain, amain, amain. 
 Awakes the slumbering torrent of the dell. 
 And sweeps along the mountain and the vale 
 In dissolution vast and aggravated gale. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The long canal of Crinan threading slow, 
 By snatches and through storm the varied scene 
 We view, of meads where 'mid autumnal glow 
 Of harvest, slips of pasturage intervene, 
 Or dales that slumber underneath the brow 
 Of lofty ridges mantled o'er with green. 
 Or rocky solitude wherein our way 
 Through floodgate and through sluice we wind into 
 the bay
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFF A. 23 
 
 XXV. 
 
 That to the Sound of Jura passage wide 
 Expanding, whitens with the lengthened swell 
 And undulation of the' Atlantic tide ; 
 Whose hollow moans of woe and sliipwreck tell : 
 For though the breeze remit, the clouds divide. 
 And sunshine seem to augur all is well, 
 Yet still in perturbation heaves the deep. 
 And treacherous is the calm when winds and waters 
 sleep. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Still skim the birds of tempest o'er the wave. 
 And sea-fowl wheel in legions to the land ; 
 Along the coast by fits the billows rave. 
 Foaming in length of breakers on the strand; 
 Strange sighings issue from each rocky cave. 
 And oft-returning vapours wide expand, 
 Cajiping Argyle's bleak mountains on our lee. 
 Or with their shadows broad impurpling the green 
 sea.
 
 24 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 STEAM-BOAT AT SEA. 
 
 Dark are the clouds on Jura: who shall bind 
 The mustering hurricane on Scarba's shore ? 
 The rocks are on our right, the storm behind. 
 
 Mull's sable promontory scowls before. 
 
 And with a sound of doom comes on the wind, 
 (The sea rebellowing to the thundei-'s roar). 
 
 While turbulence and night the' horizon sweep, 
 Blackening the surgy tumult of the deep. 
 That like a battle-trumpet dumbs the vain 
 
 Disport of mirth. Stern Voice, and word of Power, 
 Thou art obeyed ! nor shall a thought profane 
 Be mingled with the musings of this hour, 
 
 That hath a joy and mystery of its own ; 
 
 The nearer death, the nearer worlds unknown.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 25 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Tempt not the narrows that divide the steep 
 Of Scarba's isle from Jura's mountain cones ; 
 For there the cacodemon of the deep, 
 Fell • Corrie-Vreken, spreads the marrowless bones 
 Of his ten thousand giant arms, that sweep 
 Whate'er they grasp to where the dying groans 
 Resound for ever of the victims hurled 
 Into the whirlpool's gorge, and gulf of ocean's world. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Danger is every where : youth, beauty, iiealth, 
 
 Walk in the midst of death : even in the hour 
 
 Of noonday and security, by stealth 
 
 The judgment comes that from the pride of power 
 Bears us to night and sepulture. Yet wealth 
 In heaven may still be treasured up ; a tower 
 Of refuge may be won, a sovereign friend, 
 When all tilings pass away, and time is at an end. 
 
 • Tlic t'onuiduble whirlpool ot tlie Western Islanils.
 
 26 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 At length o'er gloom and anarchy prevail 
 The sunbeams ; spiriting the surge to dance 
 And sparkle : over ocean's hill and dale 
 Our vessel gambols, like the measured prance 
 Of a proud charger, when upon the gale 
 He scents far off the battle, and with glance 
 Of fire awaits the signal cry to bound 
 Forward, and like a thunderbolt the foe confound. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Meantime, in various converse wears the day. 
 In welcome interchange of memory's store. 
 History or politics, romance or lay. 
 Or geologic or botanic lore. 
 Rhyme cannot reckon up, nor thought survey 
 Of talk the thousand streams without a shore : 
 Yet may the substance thus in brief be told ; 
 High-talented the young, and courteous were the old.* 
 
 * This is but scanty justice to my fellow passengers in the High- 
 land-Chieftain Steam-boat; which left the Bromielaw, Glasgow, 
 at one p.m., August 1st, 1825. I give the date, in order to appro- 
 priate the acknowledgment.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 27 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 So hat, and forage-cap, and bonnet blue, 
 And Highland trews, and English pantaloon, 
 A motley, but not ill-accordant crew. 
 In blithe companionship held parley boon : 
 And well to please us all our Captain knew. 
 ITis very visage, ruddy as the moon. 
 And cheerful as the sun, might favour win : 
 Bright was the dial-jjlate, and staunch tlie works 
 within. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 As builds the martlet underneath each coign 
 Of vantage, where the winds breathe balm around. 
 Or, nestling in the' embowed ceiling-'s roof 
 Of ruined chapel, utters not a sound. 
 Lest cruel hands her callow young purloin ; 
 (Alas ! that hands so cruel should be found). 
 So Easdale, cradled in yon rocky wall, 
 Securely sees the tide for ever rise and fall,
 
 28 
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 And cloistered like a votaress in the rude 
 Cloud-mantled wilderness of stern Argyle, 
 Takes refuge at the shrine of solitude 
 From cares that vex, and wishes that beguile; 
 For how should sin or vanity intrude. 
 Or Caledonia's hermitage defile. 
 Where mountains, circling every creek and bay, 
 Scare (like adversity) the flaunting world away? 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Black as the boat of Charon, o'er the main 
 Fire-breathing and smoke-vomiting we go ; 
 And far behind us, like a comet's train, 
 Interminable length of vapour throw, 
 O'ershadowing wide the deep : our engines strain 
 Each sinew, and the boiler pants below ; 
 And streaks of foam astern with snow-white line 
 Mark in the waves our track of passage serpentine.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFF A. 29 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Twice since meridian bath the hour-giass sand 
 Run outj when easterly we turn aside 
 To where the harbour's curving horns expand, 
 And white-walled Oban, in commercial pride. 
 Like silver coronal surmounts the strand ; 
 The while Dunolly- Castle o'er the tide 
 Frowns from his neighbouring terrace-crag, between 
 The turmoil of the wave, and bank of woodland 
 green. 
 
 XXXVl. 
 
 Three conquering * Amazons came here on board. 
 Of enterprise and intellectual rare, 
 With all that might adorn bright lady stored. 
 And fair to view, yet wiser slill than fair ; 
 Nor did they haughtily their talent hoard. 
 Nor let us burst in ignorance and despair, 
 But mind with mind in frank collision changed. 
 And o'er the wide domain of arts and letters ranged. 
 
 * Tlic name of these ladies I omit, from tlie same motives of 
 respect which induced me to suppress the name of tlie beautiful 
 Countess, in the description of the Stag-hunt, in my " Three Days 
 at Killarney." Canto iii.
 
 30 
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Far had they roved, unheeding what the way 
 Or weather, smooth, rough, stormy, or serene ; 
 Each depth to sound, each summit to survey. 
 Trace each memorial, each tradition glean 
 Of island, continent, or strait or bay. 
 Mountain, or vale, or cavern, or ravine : 
 And whatsoe'er they thought, or felt, or knew. 
 Their pencil, speech, or pen, at will recalled to view. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Our course resuming, on thy verdant isle, 
 Lismore, a glance in passing we bestow, 
 Where once the Dane had fortress ; where Argyle, 
 Transferring from Dunkeld the mitred brow 
 Of prelacy, bade dedicate erewhile 
 The palace and cathedral. Silence now 
 And devastation there dominion hold. 
 And in the gates of dark forgetfulness infold
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFF A. 31 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 The pomp and archives of Monastic sway, 
 The fortalice of Scandinavian might. 
 The mailed soldado, and the churchman gray. 
 The toil, the power, the grandeur, the delight 
 Of a once busy world, now borne away 
 From memory in the sempiternal flight 
 Of years and ages toward the boundless sea. 
 Where all things are engulphed in dread eternity. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Steering into the Sound of Mull, we view 
 Of Aros the dilapidated tower ; 
 An uncouth quadrate, sicklied o'er with hue 
 Of moss and lichen, the pale ghost of power 
 Departed. Now in retribution due. 
 The contumely of the wind and shower 
 Beleaguers and upbraids the ruthless wall, 
 That gave the Captive bread of woe and drink of gall.
 
 32 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 In stream-like curvature beside the mound 
 Where the Maclean erewhile with straggling pile 
 Of Duart-Castle the rude harbour crowned. 
 Through gloom and desolation many a mile 
 Under the cope of evening winds the Sound, 
 By heath and beach, by mountain and defile. 
 To where Artornish on the rugged height 
 His sullen bulwark hangs,— a stomi-cloud of the night. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 A privilege,* Artornish, to thy tower 
 Is given by magic of immortal song ; 
 The wind may rage, and earthquake may devour. 
 The billow and the cloud may sweep along ; 
 But heed them not, nor tremble at the power 
 Of time, or enginry of hostile wrong. 
 Nor fear the fiend oblivion, more deform 
 Than havoc or decay, than thunderbolt or storm. 
 • See " The Lord of the Isles."
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 33 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 For here the Merlin of the North hath bound 
 His vassal imps, nocturnal watch to keep 
 In revelry and masque. The bridal sound, 
 Lord of the hundred isles, is on the steep. 
 And Bruce in majesty looks calmly round. 
 Though thousand falchions from the scabbard leap 
 Curse not ; Lord Abbot : Heaven is over all ; 
 And nothing from thy lips but benison may fall. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Fire burn, and caldron bul)ble ; till the charm 
 Be to the height wound up, and swift we glide 
 Along the Channel ; by the stalwart arm 
 Of witchcraft sped along to where the tide 
 By Tobermorie * sees the dormant swarm 
 Of shipping and of trade at anchorage ride ; 
 And kind reception early stand and late. 
 On the tired voyager and drowsy guest to wait. 
 * Tobermorie — Well of Mary.
 
 34 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 TOBERMORIE. 
 
 Bear up the Sound, for now declining- day 
 Gives signal of repose. On either strand 
 Of Morven, or of Mull, with shadowy hand 
 Twilight bedims each rock and fortress gray, 
 
 That meet us, and are left, and melt away 
 
 In gloom, while gradual creeping o'er the land 
 Night veils the port, the town, the curving sand. 
 The sheltering hills, and deep-sequestered bay. 
 
 So vanish youth and joy, and leave behind 
 Vain longing : year by year away they roll. 
 And all is bitterness. Unjust and blind. 
 
 Be silent, and adore Heaven's high control 
 
 Thus loosening, one by one, the cords that bind 
 In manacles of earth the heaven-born soul.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFF A. 35 
 
 XLV. 
 
 How dimly seen the concourse on the pier ; 
 What doubtful outline, sea from land divides ; 
 How fade away sound, motion, form, from ear 
 And eye, while twilight into darkness glides ! 
 And, oh ! liow gloom and silence more endear 
 The solitvide around, where fancy hides 
 A thousand spells of awe : while earth and air 
 Breathe balm to the hurt mind, and rest from every 
 care. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 But peace on earth is brief. Ere yet the prime 
 Of night expire, disconsolately moan 
 The glens and moorlands; while with altered clime 
 Showers crowding after showers, abatement none 
 Of turbulence accord. It is a time 
 When comes abroad Jehovah from his throne. 
 Walking upon the wings of wind and storm 
 That at his word arise, and his behest perform. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Such the wild night : but with auspicious ray- 
 Rises the summer mom ; and at the hour 
 When equinoctial suns bring back the day. 
 The talisman of elemental power 
 Up Mull's romantic Sound impels our way ; 
 Where, like a mingled mass of wall and tower, 
 Benmore and his companion hills around. 
 In pomp fantastical the rude horizon bound. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Mark Ardnamurchan's promontory low. 
 Like a long island floating on the main ; 
 Mark well each passing prospect as it flies. 
 Nor leaves the gazer pause to look again. — 
 So when the soul is mounting to the skies. 
 Recede the world and its chimeras vain — 
 From reach to reach, from cape to cape we wind. 
 And leave the Sound with all its pensive charms 
 behind.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 37 
 
 HEBRIDES. 
 
 Mull's northern point is weathered, and the deep 
 Spreads unconfined before us, heaving slow 
 In solemn undulation to and fro. 
 Far, far along the coast the billows leap 
 
 In foam and brightness o'er each shingly heap, 
 And in the hues of light and ether glow 
 The clouds above us, and the seas below. 
 While through the labyrinth of isles we sweep. 
 
 With Skye behind us, and Tiree before. 
 And many a storied region all around. 
 The cave, the cairn, the fortress of the Dane, 
 
 And that celestial chantress of the main * 
 
 Who bade the winds and waters praise resound, 
 And savage clans in new-born faith adore. 
 
 * lona — " that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of 
 the Caledonian regions."
 
 38 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 A speck of azure, StafFa right ahead 
 Springs from the wave, while on our left their long 
 Dimension Mull's gigantic hills outspread 
 In sterile grandeur. Oscar and the throng 
 That clamoured once in chase and war, are fled ; 
 Or but survive in legendary song : 
 While winds and waters with lugubrious roar 
 Mourn for the chiefs of old that shall return no more. 
 
 L. 
 
 Nearer and nearer, one by one, behold 
 Staft'a's thick-shafted clifts and beetling brow 
 Their unsubstantial pageantries unfold 
 In dream-like shadow. Is their clustering row 
 No phantom, but a prodigy of mould 
 Terrestrial, tangible ? In awe we bow. 
 In tongueless adoration ; heart and eye 
 Entranced, and every sense bound up in ecstasy.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 39 
 
 STAFF A. 
 
 Arise, fair vision ! from the wondering deeps 
 In all thy pomp of colonnaded shore. 
 And while the terrors of the' Atlantic roar 
 Against thy caverns and basaltic steeps, 
 
 Lift up thy voice mysterious to proclaim — 
 Loud as the hurricanes that from on high 
 Sweep the wild waste of ocean and of sky — 
 The glory of His Everlasting Name 
 
 Who laid thy dark foundations ; gave to roll 
 The seas around thee, and the winds to blow. 
 Arched the blue firmament, and wheeled the pole. 
 And measured out the vast abyss below, 
 
 And bade thee chronicle the doom that hurled 
 
 The bolt of vengeance on a deluged world.
 
 "^O VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Now is the soul attempered to the mood 
 Of contemplation ; now Columba's isle 
 We seek, where long of yore the holy rood 
 In triumph beamed on the conventual pile, 
 And from the' Ebudae scared away the brood 
 Of idols nursed by superstition's guile, 
 Celtic or Indian fiends, and bade the song 
 Of Hallelujah peal the winds and waves among. 
 
 LII. 
 
 We land, the venerable wreck survey. 
 Muse o'er each vestige, trace out every bound. 
 Through monastery and cathedral stray. 
 And thrilled with indignation gaze around 
 Where more than Time hath hastened their decay, 
 And sacrilege hath marred the sculptured mound 
 Where bones of prelate lie, where wait for doom 
 The tenants of a throne, now tenants of the tomb.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 41 
 
 ION A* 
 
 O spare the dead ! touch not with hand profane 
 These effigied memorials over all 
 That earth of saint or monarch can retain. 
 
 Already storms and seasons shake the wall. 
 The tottering cross, the cloister, and the tower : 
 Aid them not, I adjure thee — by the call • 
 
 That taught these once barbarian isles the power 
 Of truth, and records of the Gospel page — 
 By every lamp of worship's midnight hour. 
 
 Oft piloting the bark o'er ocean's rage — 
 By all whose safety blest that ray benign — 
 By all whose penitence through every age. 
 
 In supplication to the grace divine, 
 
 Hath wept and trembled at lona's shrine. 
 
 * Here we could not but feel shocked and indignant on discover- 
 ing that an ancient tomb in the Church bore the marks of recent 
 and wilful mulilalion.
 
 42 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Here as we muse and wander, all the past 
 Comes rushing on the soul : the pomps are seen 
 Processional of festival or fast ; 
 And issuing from the choir's high-fretted screen. 
 Service and anthem mingle with the blast 
 In foretaste of the jubilee serene 
 When faith and hope, into immediate sight 
 Transmuted, bask in full fruition of delight. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Time urges, and necessity gives law : 
 Farewel : the gaze, the reverie must end : 
 Once more, farewel : in melancholy awe 
 Our course reverted we to Staffa bend, 
 And gradual see the level shore withdraw 
 Till earth and water in confusion blend. 
 So time and distance hide each joy from view, 
 Yet ever mock our hope with promises of new.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFF A. 43 
 
 LV. 
 
 Watch now the shadows of the clouds that sweep 
 The solitudes of Mull abrupt and bare 
 In mountain length or in basaltic steep 
 Piled up, Neptunian or Plutonian stair. 
 Here vacancy and silence ruled the deep 
 Erewhile ; but now, the progeny of air 
 And caldron-fire, steam-salamanders ! play 
 And flounder porpoise-like along the watery way. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Here voyaged once the Bruce ; and hither came 
 The last and noblest Minstrel to resound 
 His flight and toil, his victory and his fame, 
 And conjure up on Caledonian ground 
 Visions of chivalry and antique name. 
 Of caverned outlaw, and of monarch crowned. 
 Of errant cavalier, and lady bright. 
 The Southron embassy, the council-board and fight.
 
 "^4 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 LVir. 
 
 His utmost verge in headland rude and low 
 From ocean on the left see Staffa rear ; 
 Then the bluff jDromontory, then the brow 
 Of earth, of stone, of heather starved and sere, 
 Incumbent on the long columnar show 
 Framed by the hands of wonder and of fear. 
 And broken by the cavern's yawning gloom, 
 That seems of armies whole and buried realms the 
 tomb. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Tempt not the' abyss by sea ; nor hope to ride 
 In safety on the deluge of the main ; 
 But land ; and take the broken shafts for guide. 
 And terrace-like along their sable chain 
 O'er prism or cylinder basaltic stride 
 To where the gorge o'erarches in disdain 
 The billows that in everlasting storm 
 Give onset, and with weed and wreck its base deform.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 45 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Look inward, leap the chasm,* and onward tread 
 Secure beyond the reach of ocean's foam ; 
 And leave the day behind, and overhead 
 Suspended high behold the mountain dome. 
 Fit place wherein with darkness and the dead 
 Contemplative through other worlds to roam. 
 Look downward, look around, look up, and soar 
 On wings of praise to Him whom heaven and earth 
 adore. 
 
 LX. 
 
 Above, below, and every where around 
 The finger of the' Omnipotent revere. 
 That form and order to the void profound. 
 And radiance to the firmamental sphere. 
 And orbit, law, circumference and bound 
 Gives to the regencies of day and year. 
 And poises in the balance land and sea. 
 And air, and fire, and heaven, time and eternity. 
 
 * This chasm is now (1829) bridged over with a plank and 
 railing.
 
 46 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 CAVE OF FINGAL. 
 
 Cavern or temple, though thy magic frame 
 Of dusky vault and pillared aisle long-drawn. 
 From morn to night, from night-fall to the dawn. 
 From year to year, from age to age the same. 
 
 Hear not the chant or pealing organ blow 
 To Him in unapproached light enshrined. 
 Yet still for thee the melancholy wind 
 And thunder of the billows that below 
 
 Foam o'er thy pavement to its utmost bound. 
 For thee the full-voiced elemental quire 
 Responsive to the seraph host, resound 
 Praise to the' Invisible Eternal Sire, 
 
 Who to the meanest of his works hath given — 
 
 Would man but hear — the harmonies of heaven. 
 
 END OF CANTO I.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 CANTO T[. 
 
 They that in ships descending to the deep. 
 By compass, chart, and cynosure their way 
 Over the trackless world of waters keep. 
 These men the wonders and" the works survey 
 Of God ; see tempest at his bidding sweep 
 The surge to mountains, overwhelm the day 
 In blackness, and the powers of air unchain 
 While thunderbolt and lightning combat with tiie 
 main.
 
 48 STAFFA 
 
 II. 
 
 Up to the pole, down to the centre rolled, 
 With death they ride the billows: to and fro 
 Tliey reel and stagger ; horror quells the bold, 
 And the soul melts away in fear and woe ; 
 Till by the Voice Omnipotent controlled 
 The furies of the storm their prey forego. 
 What awe, what exultation then adore 
 Him who rebuked the wind and silenced ocean's roar. 
 
 in. 
 
 Thus in the hurricane or calm are found 
 Alike, a power, an eloquence, a song 
 To disenchant us from the world around ; 
 That held us in its labyrinth so long. 
 And every sense imparadise in sound 
 Of hallelujah from the Seraph throng. 
 Day without close, world without end, in height 
 Of transcendental bliss before the throne of light.
 
 TO FORT-WILLIAM. 49 
 
 IV. 
 
 Be such our sacrifice, be such the theme 
 Of rumination, such the fires that burn 
 Within the heart, and spread abroad the steam 
 Of incense, while from Stafta we return, 
 And wrapt in holy passion bless the beam 
 Of truth, and leave mortality's sojourn 
 For solitudes where He who ruled the Law 
 And Prophets, did of old to secret prayer withdraw. 
 
 V. 
 
 See, far beyond the heights of Ronin,* Skye 
 Abrupt in savageness of grandeur tower. 
 Where the monarchal eagle, throned on high. 
 Defiance screams to man's usurping power : 
 Hark ! how the breezes and the melody 
 Of ocean soothe the solemn evening hour 
 When pious knees in supplication bend. 
 And orisons of sage or saint to heaven ascend. 
 
 * Ronin — corruptly written, Rum.
 
 rA) STAFF A 
 
 VI. 
 
 The sea-gull wheels in solitary flight 
 Where on the rock his cradle hangs sublime ; 
 While many a strange remembrance at the sight 
 vV wakes, of albatross, Antarctic clime, 
 The dying crew, the spectre ship, and night 
 Of bride-feast, made immortal by the rhyme 
 That haunts our couch with pity and with fear. 
 And thrilling mystery of "Auncient Marinere." 
 
 VII. 
 
 Nor second he, whose never-daunted hand 
 O'er Padalon, and Earth, aud Swerga flung 
 The spoils of Indian and Arabian land. 
 With human passion filled the green-bird's tongue. 
 Crushed in DomdaniePs den the sorcerer band ; 
 The harp of Cambria and of Spain new strung. 
 And o-ave to Trafalgar and Nelson's name 
 His own bright amaranthine diadem of fame.
 
 TO FORT-WILLIAM. 51 
 
 VIII. 
 
 But what is fame ? Its frailty and farewel 
 In emblem let expiring day disclose. 
 Forgotten, as in night and slumbei''s cell 
 The rich forget their cares, the poor their woes. 
 But what is fame ? Let day's revival tell 
 In emblem how emerging from repose 
 The glory of the just shall dawn on high, 
 And brighten into noon of immortality. 
 
 SOUND OF MULL. 
 
 The billows sink, as down the Sound we glide 
 From ocean, and the melancholy flow 
 Of the half-slumbering current murmurs low 
 A farewel to the day. Even so subside 
 
 The throbbings of terrestrial hope and pride : 
 The worm is battening on the hero's brow, 
 
 E 2
 
 52 STAFFA 
 
 And scarce a vague tradition deigns to show 
 The battle-field where peers and princes died. 
 Yet is there an ascent — like that of old 
 
 Whereon the Patriarch in mysterious dream 
 " Ascending and descending angels saw — 
 By which the mounting spirit may withdraw 
 From earth, and on the topmost stair behold 
 The throne, the crystal sea, and beatific beam. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Mournful the stillness, and with mournful shade 
 The veil of evening twilight hath embrowned 
 The majesty of loneliness, where fade 
 Cape, mountain, valley, into blank profound 
 Of undistinguishable gloom. Dismayed 
 We gaze and start, interpret every sound. 
 In every cloud a passing spirit see. 
 And fancy in each breeze the mermaid's minstrelsy.
 
 TO FORT-WILLIAM. 53 
 
 For here a subtle archimage the spell 
 Of fiction muttered ; peopling- the blue stream. 
 The rock, the mist, the cavern, and the dell, 
 The windy INIorven, and the moonlight gleam. 
 With chief in council, and with bard in cell, 
 Cuchullin's car, INIalvina's early beam. 
 Fleets on the wave, and armies on the shore, 
 The chime of harp, the cry of hounds, the battle's roar. 
 
 OSSTAN. 
 
 When the pomp and power of Rome, 
 
 Her luxury, wealth, and tyrant pride 
 
 That wished the conquered world more wide. 
 
 Her arts and arms, had found their tomb 
 
 In that unfathomed deep 
 
 Where spectres of departed empires sleep
 
 54 STAFFA 
 
 Without a record or a name 
 
 To note their glory or their shame ; 
 
 The firmament grew dark on high. 
 
 And angels gazed with pitying sigh. 
 
 Yet, though the ruin and the gloom 
 
 Seemed of universal doom, 
 
 Hope was still to rear her head. 
 
 Still there was life among the dead ; 
 
 For not till ocean cease to roll. 
 
 Or moon and stars to gem the pole, 
 
 Is music's power to die. 
 
 And 'mid that nethermost profound 
 
 Of solitude and silence round, 
 
 A far-off melancholy sound 
 
 Breathed from a rude and wizard coast 
 
 Aerial melody. 
 
 The deep-toned harp was newly strung. 
 
 And to the touch of passing ghost 
 
 In hollow murmurs rung. 
 
 Wild unearthly dirges then 
 
 Did to the sons of little men
 
 TO FOIIT-WILLIAM. (>0 
 
 The tale of other times and other worlds unfold 
 
 While from his cloud a warrior bold, 
 
 With mournful voice, though sweet. 
 
 Bade Erin to the Hebrid Isles repeat 
 
 The hardiment of heroes old. 
 
 The scowling spectres of the storm, 
 
 And Loda's spirit, grimly form. 
 
 His magic voice could call : 
 
 And often on the blasted heath. 
 
 Dark rock, or echoing wood, or stone of power. 
 
 Dim flame, and shapes of death. 
 
 And visionary arms appeared. 
 
 And mystic sounds were heard. 
 
 Startling the midnight hour, 
 
 In Ossian's airy hall.
 
 66 STAFFA 
 
 XI. 
 
 Alas, that reason's audit knows not ruth ! 
 From main to island, island back to main. 
 The Sage of Lichfield, panoplied in truth. 
 Came striding, and reversed the' enchantei-'s strain. 
 And swept the cherished fable of our youth 
 Like rubbish from the disencumbered brain. 
 Sad cure ! we pine in longing to renew 
 The' illusion, and believe the tale of Temora true. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Mountain to mountain, Mull across the wave 
 In speech of other days to Morven calls. 
 The while from every cairn, from every cave, 
 A cry of wailing the lone heath appals. 
 Desolate is the dwelling of the brave ! 
 The fox sole warder of its rifted walls ; 
 And in the Hall of Shells each misty form 
 For Morna weeps, and swells with feeble shriek the 
 storm.
 
 ■JO FORT-WILLIAM. 67 
 
 xin. 
 
 Even when at length oblivion and repose 
 We woo in Tobermorie, round our bed 
 The wild phantasmagoria comes and goes — 
 From fume and second-sighted musing bred — 
 Where banquet, lyke-wake, or the strife of foes 
 Give omen of the distant or the dead ; 
 And song's of Selma murmur all around. 
 And to their Ossian's voice dread Cona's streams 
 resound. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 What wonder then, if at the peep of day 
 Unslumbering still, the skirling pipes we hear. 
 And to the pibroch's call obedience pay. 
 That signals our embarkment from the pier ; 
 While clouds around each mountain-summit stray. 
 As down the windings of the Sound we steer. 
 And witli the power conjoint of wheel and sail 
 Scud merrily along before the favouring gale.
 
 58 STAFFA 
 
 XV. 
 
 Calm was the silence of the night, and calm 
 The morning-, in her amber-dropping- car, 
 Along- the path of frankincense and balm 
 Comes gliding- over eastern hills afar. 
 And bids the choir of nature raise the psalm 
 Of thankfulness and joy ; as when each star 
 And constellation, to the' angelic throng 
 Responsive, sang aloud Creation's birth-day song. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Night after night, day after day, and year 
 Rolls after year : from lethargy awake, 
 And seek illumination at the sphere 
 Of glory, where the seven lamps burn, and lake 
 Of crystal rolls ; lest ignorant how to steer. 
 Shipwreck at once of faith and hope we make. 
 And sunk without a warning to the gloom 
 Of nether world, wait there the day of dread and 
 doom.
 
 TO FORT-WILLIAM. 59 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Yet how without a warnings ? In each hour 
 And moment we receive it. — Who but knows 
 That he is mortal ? who but feels the power 
 Of dissolution in each pulse that flows ? 
 Say then : shall passion, pleasure, care, devour 
 Or choke the seed which heaven in mercy sows? 
 Ah, no! — unwearied let us tend the grain, 
 Till harvest-home of heaven reward the toil and pain. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Blow, till the sail and cordage crack : we leap 
 From wave to wave, like antelope we run : 
 Artornish underneath the copse-hung steep 
 With its rude screen-work intercepts the sun. 
 And like a mourner overshades the deep 
 With one wide mantle of suffusion dun, 
 Save where the morning in redundant beams 
 Through window, crevice, door, or cross of loop-hole 
 streams.
 
 60 STAFFA 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Till as we come abreast, the sunny wall 
 That seaward meets the light, starts in austere 
 Sharp outline from the rock ; a voiceless hall. 
 And vacant now ; for He who prisoned here 
 The spirits, lets them range at large the ball 
 Of earth, from the first song of chanticleer. 
 Till hags of midnight brush away the dew, 
 And all the ghostly world their penances renew. 
 
 XX. 
 
 But, ah ! what deeds were done of lawless power 
 Erewhile amid these wrecks of castled might. 
 Where bristles every cape with fort and tower. 
 The monuments of escalade or fight. 
 By day to gripe, to ravage, and devour. 
 To watch, suspect, and barricade by night. 
 Such is the tyrant's doom, till, sure though late 
 The trumpet of destruction thunder at the gate.
 
 TO FORT-WILLIAM. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Artornish, Duart, Aros, and Lismore, 
 Tell yet of ages dark with crime and woe, 
 Each hand with spoil polluted, red with gore, 
 A fort each mansion, every chief a foe : 
 And if a feast they held, or covenant swore. 
 Or cried the coronach, or chased the roe ; 
 In sport or parley, ne'er did wrath expire. 
 But smouldering slept, to wake in famine, sword and 
 five. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Far off that brazen age hath rolled : the sway 
 Of feudal anarchy, at heaven's command 
 Hath vanished, as before the morning ray 
 The troops of spectres and of owls disband. 
 Commerce the while and peace have stolen away 
 The rod of empire from each despot hand. 
 And couched beside the shepherd and the fold. 
 The lioness of war hath sheathed her claws in jrold.
 
 62 STAFFA 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Bask in the sunshine, or in darkness lour, 
 Ye mountains of Argyle ! in light or shade 
 Alike your lineaments reflect the power 
 Divine, that erst the receptacle made 
 For congregated waters, whence ye tower 
 In fence of adamant, while deep embayed 
 Under your feet the mart of Oban stands. 
 Between the green savannas and the yellow sands. 
 
 OBAN. 
 
 Emporium of the lonely region, wreathe 
 
 With olive-branch and palm thy brow serene. 
 That never heraldry of war may breathe, 
 
 Nor cavalcade of arms be near thee seen. 
 Nor on the rock thy tower from ruin rise 
 Again with gore to' incarnadine the green
 
 TO FORT-\VILLIAi\r. ()3 
 
 Of subject ocean. Long the sacrifice 
 Of war and blood was offered up of old 
 By clan and chieftain : therefore vengeance lies 
 
 In league with time on each baronial hold. 
 Crushing its homicidal frame. No call 
 Of chivalry wakes now the warrior bold, 
 
 No groans are in the cell, no mirth in hall. 
 
 No courser at the gate, no warder on the wall. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 As snows beneath the sunshine melt, and stream 
 In many a rill from rock to rock descending, 
 So here dissolves our congress ; each on scheme 
 Of enterprise or hoped discovery wending. 
 And thus through life all pleasure— like a dream 
 When in the morning we awake— hath ending : 
 Virtue alone— though earth with all below 
 Sink in the' abyss of time— nor end nor change sliall 
 know !
 
 64 STAFF A 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Peace to their parting steps ! methinks farewel 
 Sounds like an echo of the funeral song : 
 For every parting hath in charge to tell 
 How swiftly toward the grave we pace along ; 
 While melt in pleasure, with ambition swell. 
 Or pine away in care, life's futile throng. 
 Till comes the' unlooked-for questioner to call 
 His servants, and award the' eternal doom of all. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Left now alone— yet not alone while thought 
 Can image forth fresh themes, or old renew 
 Of Horeb, or the fight on Calvary fought, 
 The bowers of Paradise, or Hermon's dew — 
 We look, and muse, and look again : yet nought 
 Of pinnace or of bark salutes our view ; 
 While regions unexplored we long to range. 
 And gladly welcome toil, if toil may purchase change.
 
 TO FORT- WILLI AM. 65 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Hour after hour the waters we explore, 
 Hour after hour accuse we the delay: 
 Yet all is mute and vacant on the shore. 
 All mute and vacant on the watery way. 
 At length we hear the distant engine's roar, 
 At length the Stirling-Castle gains the bay, 
 And now at the receipt of custom rides. 
 And now, her cargo stowed, transports us o'er the 
 tides. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Yet not without a pang we leave behind 
 Thy harbour, Oban, and thy wooded steep, 
 And round the donjon j^romontory wind, 
 No longer now the tyrant of the deej). 
 Far on the right, Loch-Etive's feet to bind, 
 Dunstaffnage rears his once monarchal keep, 
 Where stood the marble cliair, mysterious sign 
 Of domination ! ere beyond tiie Highland Line 
 
 F
 
 6^'* STAFFA 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Were yet transferred the sceptre and the throne. 
 And (fated to become the conqueroi-'s prey) 
 The sacred emblem to the towers of Scone 
 Was borne by innovation's Vandal sway, 
 Then, too, lona was ordained to moan 
 Her lettered treasure, southward swept away. 
 Where the first Edward, in unhallowed hour. 
 Bade flames each tenure, deed, and chronicle devour. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 From his meridian to the western main 
 The chariot of the sun in glory rides. 
 And gradual broadening 'mid the cloudy train 
 Of purple and gold, beneath the horizon glides. 
 Then lengthening shadows overspread the plain. 
 And slanting upward climb the mountain sides. 
 The while Ben-Cruachan's double head on high 
 Glares, like two fiery moons, amid the darkening sky.
 
 ■JO FOUT-WILLIAM. 67 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Not more assiduous did the Vestal quire 
 Their altar tend, than we the magic flame — 
 Fit element for demon to respire — 
 That to our lubbar fiend's else torpid frame 
 Gives life and strength of circumambient fire 
 With countless blows the' opj)osing flood to tame. 
 Baffle the calm, put adverse gale to flight, 
 And, like a comet, scare the denizens of night. 
 
 XXXIl. 
 
 To lounge and listen while a piping loon 
 Twangs out with screech and drone some High- 
 land lay. 
 To pace the deck, and invocate the moon 
 That struggles through the clouds with feeble ray. 
 Such are the' employments and the pastime boon 
 By chance and fortune lent to wile away 
 Our lingering passage, till tlie fatal ground 
 Appear, with dreariment and dread environed round, 
 
 F 2
 
 68 STAFF A 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Where at the base of precipices high 
 The gulf contracting drags its dusky train. 
 And the chill night-wind sweeping through the sky. 
 Seems in mysterious anguish to complain. 
 While sounds unreal, fears we know not why. 
 And forms of things that are not, haunt the brain. 
 As though eai'th, sea, and air were wrapt in gloom 
 To frown o'er murder foul, and image murdei-'s doom. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Dim shapes far off, receding to the right 
 In shadowy horror 'mid the moonbeams pale. 
 Uncertain whether cloud or mountain height, 
 Like spectres hang o'er the detested vale 
 Where Cona's torrent, at the dead of night. 
 Shrinks from the yells of slaughter in the gale. 
 And hears remorse with everlasting groan 
 Make doubt if mercy's self can pardon and atone.
 
 TO FORT-VVILLIAM. 6'.) 
 
 GLENCOE. 
 
 Shades of the dead ! forgive me that uncalled 
 I wander near the valley of your rest, 
 Which none of woman born may unappalled 
 
 Explore ; such malediction hath imprest 
 
 A branding here like that which marked for doom 
 The primal fratricide, to roam unblest 
 
 In hopeless search for death. And must the gloom 
 That desolates the desolation, lour 
 For ever unremoved, and leave no room 
 
 For mercy and the soft oblivious hour 
 
 To give a glimpse of day ? Rash pleader, know 
 That neither man nor angel hath the power 
 
 To cancel murder : here at least below 
 
 Earth covers not the blood, nor heaven remits the woe.
 
 70 STAFFA 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Darkness that may be felt ! — long time the cry 
 Of watermen gives notice ere to light 
 Emerge from vacant gloom the boats that ply 
 The ferry; and again from ear and sight 
 The figures vanish and the voices die. 
 Relapsing back to distance and to night : 
 Embarking and disbarking, to and fro 
 Their apparitions come, their apparitions go. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Thus circummured with rock and wood, from noise 
 And trepidation of the world afar 
 Sequestered, let not transitory toys 
 Nor earth-born passion in discordance jar 
 With the loud chorus of immortal joys 
 Resounding endlessly from moon and star: 
 Hear, Contemplation ! make their rapture thine. 
 Prevent the watch of night, and swell the strain divine.
 
 TO I-ORT-WILLIAM. 71 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Yet earth will have its part : the dun obscure 
 Around, the black profundity below, 
 Recal us from the meditation pure 
 Of heaven, to speculate on winds that blow, 
 And waves that roll, and what may best ensure 
 Our safety, wandering thus beneath the brow 
 Of mountains that in narrow channel bind 
 The never-resting surge indignantly confined. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Strict watch and sounding-line on shores unkenned 
 The venturous mariner securely guide ; 
 Nor even to best-known course a needless friend 
 Is caution, when by night the waves we ride : 
 Witness the dark, the miserable end 
 Of heedless voyage on the Frith of Clyde, 
 When in the midst of converse, dance, and sono- 
 J)estruction swallowed up at once the festive thron--.
 
 72 STAFF A 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Cold, cold the blast from snow-invested steeps 
 Howls down the' interminable avenue 
 Where chained within his rocky dungeon sleeps 
 Loch-Eil. At length Ben-Nevis towers to view. 
 Into the clouds aspiring from the deeps ; 
 And soon Fort- William offers to our crew 
 Reflection, warmth, aud hospitable nest. 
 Where chilled to icicle we limp or crawl to rest. 
 
 XL. 
 
 If rest in Caledonia's glen may be, 
 Where dream and fable consecrate the dell 
 Of Nevis, and enshrine the majesty 
 Of Nature on her frozen pinnacle. 
 In right supremacy o'er land and sea 
 With winter and the wintei-'s wind to dwell. 
 The Genius of the desert laughs to scorn 
 Sloth's idiot luxury, that dreams away of morn
 
 TO FORT-WILLIAM. 73 
 
 XLI. 
 
 The sacred prime, when light and odour spring 
 In emblem of revival from the dead. 
 And all the frankincense of ether fling 
 Impartial on the palace and the shed. 
 Wake, Contemplation ! wake, and imp thy wing 
 To soar above the mountain's kindling head ; 
 There hermit-like thine orisons to pay. 
 And offer up to heaven the first-fruits of the day. 
 
 XLir. 
 
 Ere yet the trial and the task come on 
 That bids us brave flood, precipice, and iiell. 
 Till the cloud-piercing eminence be won. 
 Of silence and of solitude the cell. 
 Arise : already time is to be gone ; 
 And more than time : the topmost citadel 
 Fades, darkens, disappears in the profound 
 Of rolling mist, and groans with storm-jiresaging 
 sound.
 
 74 STAFFA 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Ah me ! how heavily the clouds impend, 
 On all sides round subsiding to the dale ; 
 What gloom and tempest gather to defend 
 The pass by which we enterprise to scale 
 Ben-Nevis. Yet despair shall courage lend : 
 Adventured we so far, at last to fail ? 
 Set on — what saith the mighty * Theban ? Toil 
 Must aye be undergone, ere fortune deign to smile. 
 
 BEN-NEVIS. 
 
 We climb, we pant, we pause ; again we climb : 
 Frown not, stern mountain ! nor around thee throw 
 Thy mist and storm, but look with cloudless brow 
 O'er all thy giant progeny sublime. 
 
 While toiling up the' immeasurable height 
 
 We climb, we pant, we pause; the thickening gloom 
 
 * Twelfth Pythian of Pindar. Antistrophe second.
 
 TO FOKT-WILLIAW. 75 
 
 Hath palled us in the darkness of the tomb. 
 And on the hard-won summit sound nor sight 
 
 Salutes us, save the snow and chilling blast. 
 And all the guardian fiends of Winter's throne. 
 Such too is life — ten thousand perils past. 
 Our fume is vapour, and our mirth a groan. 
 
 But patience : till the veil be rent away. 
 And on our vision flash celestial day. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Whence is it that mankind delight to tread 
 The solitude of mountains, from the din 
 Of earth absconding into silence, dread. 
 And desolation ? Have we that within 
 Which bids awaken from among the dead 
 Of vanity or pleasure, and begin 
 Our ])ilgrimage to purify the brain 
 From folly and from care, in Nature's lonely fane P
 
 76 STAFFA 
 
 XLV. 
 
 'Mid tenebrosities of storm though lost. 
 Though buffeted by rain, sleet, hail, and wind. 
 Though close beside the precipice where frost 
 And death eternal empire hold, confined ; 
 Yet are we here by no temptation crossed. 
 Yet have we left the meddling world behind. 
 The wheels of fantasy have scope to roll. 
 And into the third heaven emancipate the soul. 
 
 XLVl. 
 
 The planets and the sun recede, and star 
 Sinks after star in measureless profound 
 Of distance and of night; the fiery car 
 Mounts up beyond what utmost limits bound 
 The glass of Galileo, when from far 
 It scans the sphere's circumference : the sound 
 Is heard of seraph anthem, and we die 
 In fragrance, glory, pangs of blissful agony.
 
 TO FORT- WILLI A.M. 77 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Time was, our purer nature might have borne 
 The' unclouded radiance of celestial light, 
 And dwelt in vision from the peep of morn 
 To the last occidental beam ; but night 
 And error blind us now, and sin hath shorn 
 The wing that once adventured angel flight: 
 So brief, so dim our glimpses of the day 
 Divine ; such penalty the primal guilt must pay. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Thus clogged, we turn from speculation lone, 
 Perforce ; and timely for descent provide. 
 Wet, weary, and benumbed, from stone to stone 
 Along the porphorytic waste we stride ; 
 Then plunge, with frequent fall and frequent groan. 
 Tottering and sliding down the steep-green side. 
 Till in the' Hospitium framed by Fairy good. 
 And " Caledonian" called, we hail repose and food.
 
 "S STAFFA 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 In counterpoise the labours of the day 
 Here let us hold : sweet, bitter, mirth and coil. 
 The cantrips of the showers athwart our way 
 Embodied dense our escalade to foil. 
 The bustle, talk, anticipation gay — 
 Themselves a full amends for every toil — 
 And the divinity that on the height 
 Of mountain spreads around a mystery of delight. 
 
 Oft have the wise ambition's peril told. 
 And even as they predicted, so befel 
 Our project unadvised and overbold 
 To beard Ben-Nevis, and invade pell-mell 
 His den of darkness, hurricane, and cold. 
 Ah ! be this pithy saw remembered well : 
 O'er disappointed hope alike may groan 
 Who clambers up a hill or clambers to a throne.
 
 TO fOllT-WlLLlAM. 79 
 
 LI. 
 
 But on the morrow's morn we wake anew, 
 Upspringing, like the dragon-fly from rest 
 Of chrysalis, and sally forth to view 
 How trade or pleasure underneath the crest 
 Of many a craggy eminence, pursue 
 Along the vast canal their several quest 
 From Glasgow, Erin, or the Western Isles, 
 To leave at Inverness their passengers or piles 
 
 LIT. 
 
 Of merchandise. No thought be of delay. 
 Though Caecias, Eurus, and Libecchio blow 
 At once : accelerate they or thwart our way. 
 Over the boiling billows on we go, 
 Like cork or walnut-shell amid the fray 
 Where current copes with blast, borne to and fro; 
 Yet safely land at Corpach, to behold 
 The channel, basin, sluice, and flood-gates that infold
 
 80 STAKFA 
 
 LIII. 
 
 The wave by just degrees aspiring high 
 Up to its summit level. All around 
 Heath, precipice, and mist-clad upland lie ; 
 While Echo back reverberates the sound 
 Of more than human utterance. — 'T is the cry 
 Of grim Ben-Nevis, bidding none be found 
 So daring to presume with earthly tread 
 Where glooms he, like that fiend from guilt and terror 
 bred. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 The Lord of Doubting-Castle and Despair. 
 How 'scaped we then from that forbidden dale 
 What time the stream we forded, up the bare 
 Abruption climbed, and stormed through rain and 
 
 hail 
 The peak where dominant in upper air 
 Immitigable winter arms the gale 
 With fog and vapour, cloud and ice and snow, 
 To wreak remorseless vengeance on the world below !
 
 TO FORT-WILLTA^I. 81 
 
 LV. 
 
 AVhat will not enterprise ? See Holland brave 
 With stubborn dike the fury of the main, 
 While curbed reluctantly the surging wave 
 Looks down on the fat level in disdain. 
 And here, in Scotland, see strange waters lave 
 From loch to loch the ship-transporting plain, 
 While Nature, driven from her sequestered hold. 
 Yields to the despotism of commerce and of gold. 
 
 CALEDONIAN CANAL. 
 
 Like the sea-snake thy long dimension wind, 
 Wonder of Caledonia ! from the shore 
 Of JMorven, till thou hear the wintei-'s flaw 
 Of Norumbega and the Baltic roar. 
 
 The solitude that never knew of yore 
 
 A stranger's foot-fall, now beholds in awe 
 
 G
 
 82 STAFFA 
 
 Armies and fleets where hart and hind before 
 Ramped on tlie heath or harboured in the shaw. 
 
 While looks Ben-Nevis with an eye severe 
 On his invaded confines, and enshrouds 
 In gloom and tempest his indignant head; 
 
 Dark as the' abode of thunder when the clouds 
 On Horeb hung, and Israel shook to hear 
 The clarion that to doom shall wake the dead. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 What need we Inverlochy-Castle sing, 
 With towers orbicular that flank each side 
 Of quadrate, founded by the warrior king 
 Who erst the cause of Bruce and Baliol tried ? 
 Disastrous cause ! of countless woes the spring. 
 Chieftains that nobly but untimely died. 
 Orphans and childless widows left to mourn. 
 And double-drenched in blood the field of Bannock- 
 Bourn.
 
 TO FOllT-WILLIAM. 83 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Enough; — past grievance let us not rehearse. 
 Nor long-departed rivalry recal, 
 Nor let the fount of melody and verse 
 Be tinged unheedingly with drops of gall. 
 But more, far more beware the crime, the curse 
 That cankerbites the poet's coronal, 
 When sensual or seditious lays inflame 
 Unwary youth, or strew with flowers the porch of 
 shame. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Seize on imagination's car, and ride 
 Far from Circa?an isle and bower of sin. 
 And find auspicious themes on many a side 
 Of mountain, many a valley, loch, or linn. 
 The crag, the Kelpie's flow, the maniac bride, 
 Bridge, fortress, dungeon, ambuscade, and din 
 Of battle float upon the breeze of noon. 
 Or people the clear, cold dominion of the moon. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 
 
 STAFFA 
 
 LIX. 
 
 In wilds like these, romance and day-dreams claim 
 A more than wonted empire o'er the soul, 
 And many an airy shape of wonder frame. 
 New spheres, new firmament wherein to roll. 
 Reason the while stands wavering, loth to blame. 
 And half-afraid the license to control ; 
 Till comes the missive angel to refine 
 Each thought with living coals of incense from the 
 shrine. 
 
 LX. 
 
 This done, we may unblamed expatiate far 
 Into the land of faery, view the' alcove 
 Of Oberon and Titania, or the star 
 Of Hermes, or Armida's magic grove. 
 Or boldly vault into the Swerga's car. 
 Ride on the clouds, or with the comet rove. 
 Retrace the past, and bring the distant near. 
 And through futurity in eagle flight career.
 
 TO FORT-WILLIAM. 85 
 
 LXI. 
 
 How welcome the delirium, could I cheat 
 With visionary realms the half-shut eye. 
 Ascending- on imaginary * feet 
 Once more up huge Ben-Nevis to the sky. 
 The Genius of the mountain there to meet 
 And mingle with him speech of fantasy, 
 And look abroad on all that may be seen, 
 When ether sleeps around, pellucid and serene. 
 
 JiEN-NEVlS. (2nd). 
 
 « 
 
 With many a halt ascending from the dale. 
 Up to the pinnacle of rock and snow. 
 We watch the mist that shrouded all below 
 Yield to the wind, and fluctuate; iiere a vale 
 
 * Imaginary indeed : tor though T have twice been on tlie summit 
 of Ben-Nevis, yet both times the fog and stornr were absolutely 
 impenetrable.
 
 86 STAFFA TO FORT-WILLIAM. 
 
 Half-seen, and there an island, as the gale 
 
 Scatters the clouds, while from the mountain's brow 
 We downward gaze on earth emerging slow- 
 In ever-widening orb, till vision fail 
 
 Bewildered in circumference without bound. 
 So from the blast of doom shall darkness fly. 
 And mysteries all be clear ; save one alone. 
 
 The depth which not archangel thought can sound. 
 The height, the blaze beyond archangel eye. 
 The mystery of Him that sitteth on the throne. 
 
 END OF CANTO H.
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 I. 
 
 There is a fountain that in spotless cahn 
 And molten diamond flows from endless time. 
 And on its border the wide-shadowing palm 
 Of Paradise, in everlasting- prime 
 From blossom and from bark diffuses balm 
 And odour, more than of Sabasan clime ; 
 And whoso tastes the fountain or the tree 
 Is nourished into life and immortality.
 
 y3 FORT.^^•ILLIAM 
 
 II. 
 
 O for that fountain sleeping in repose 
 Serene, impassible to taint and stain ! 
 O for that tree whose leaves — than Sharon's rose. 
 Than myrrh and cassia sweeter — pearly grain 
 Drop down, and monthly fruit of life disclose ! 
 O for the draught that medicates the brain, 
 The sustenance divine that heals decay, 
 Pain, frailty, death, and all the penalty of clay ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Peace, murmurei- : from the Rock of ages springs 
 That fount whereof who drinks shall thirst no more; 
 And faith before our contemplation brings 
 That city in the' Apocalypse of yore 
 Revealed, where angel jubilation sings ; 
 And, teeming with all salutai'y store, 
 The Tree of Life, refulgent to behold. 
 Exhales nectareous sweets, and blooms ambrosial gold.
 
 TO EDINBURGH, 89 
 
 IV. 
 
 Peace, murmurer, peace : hast tliou not heard the 
 
 voice 
 Of God by Prophet and Apostle call ? 
 Doth not the everlasting Gospel choice 
 Of" life or death promulgate free to all ? 
 What would thine utmost longing more ? Rejoice, 
 And on thy knees in adoration fall, 
 And enter at the door and })athvvay given 
 To pass through life and death ascending up to 
 
 heaven. 
 
 Die to the flesh, and bury every care 
 Beneath the Cross : there let each jiassion lie 
 Self-mortified, and by such change prepare 
 To rear, and rear unblamed, its head on high. 
 Regenerate into virtue. So tlie bare 
 Dry grain is sown ; anon to fructify 
 From dissolution, cover earth with wealth. 
 And cheer the heart of man with sustenance and 
 health.
 
 90 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 VI. 
 
 Say not that thou art weak : for strength is thine. 
 Lent from above, to prosper thee in quest 
 Of wisdom : see the lamp before thee shine, 
 That guides thee toward the mansion of the blest. 
 Go : purify thine heart for a divine 
 Inhabitant, fit temple for fit guest ; 
 And when the pilgrimage of life is o'er. 
 The Sabbath peace on high be thine for evermore. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Meantime the wayward world will have its share, 
 A tempter hard to fly, and hard to foil — 
 While soul and body, strangely-wedded pair. 
 Heap, each on other, trouble and turmoil — 
 And we must yoke with sublunary care. 
 Nerving ourselves anew for march and toil; 
 For as no reptile is in Ireland found. 
 So sluggard none may live on Caledonian ground.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 91 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Else here, amid the hills of ling and broom, 
 Beside the Loch, or in the lonely dell, 
 Amid the nebulosity and gloom. 
 The storm and torrent, gladly could we dwell. 
 Watching the clouds, and in their dusky loom 
 Weaving all forms of wild and terrible. 
 But what avails it P wish as wish we may, 
 Ceites, nor time nor tide will at our wishing stay. 
 
 IX. 
 
 No : heaven forefend ! we were not born to sport 
 Unheedingly, like lambkin on the green. 
 Or like the' ephemeral fly, that in the court 
 Of Phoebus wantons, vanishing ere seen. 
 If need or duty summon, what import 
 The peril, cross, fatigue that intervene ? 
 For though a thousand charms be left behind. 
 Full countervail is in the self-approving mind.
 
 92 
 
 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 X. 
 
 Now southward bending, snuff we with delight 
 The breeze that blows from Enoland — love and fear 
 
 Bring distances invisible to sight — 
 
 And sound inaudible by instinct hear. 
 Sweet is the balm of orange-grove by night, 
 vVnd sweet the matin song of Chanticleer, 
 And sweet the privilege abroad to roam ; 
 But sweeter than them all is the returning home ! 
 
 XL 
 
 Disdain not, Caledonia, nor repine, 
 If penury and toil thy portion be ; 
 A better wealth than gems or gold is thine, 
 A happier lot than pomp and luxury. 
 Even on the waste hath culture stamped the sign 
 Of industry and peace : the spirit free. 
 The vigorous arm, are thine ; the patriot name, 
 The statesman's deep research, the bard's celestial 
 flame.
 
 TO EDTNP.UUCfl. 93 
 
 XII. 
 
 Beside the Loch that stretches many a mile 
 Between two mountain walls its azure plain. 
 Though rude the huts, yet patches round them smile 
 Of vegetable store, of pulse and grain. 
 With faith and hope the peasantry beguile 
 Their doom of labour, loneliness, and pain ; 
 Snatches of antique melody they troll, 
 And up to heaven tlieir liynins like smoke from censer 
 roll. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 But now the base of broken hillocks rounding. 
 We take the roughly-undulating way 
 That leads, with jolt and swing and wheels rebound- 
 ing. 
 To where liOch-Leven spreads her ample bay. 
 Here, every sense in ecstasy confounding, 
 Lake, rock, and wood their witcheries display. 
 And in a full delirium of delijrht 
 More than Elysium bursts on the bewildered sight.
 
 94 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Root-bound we gasp — advance — stop short— again 
 Advance, again transfixed with wonder stand, 
 Unwearied gazing on the wild domain. 
 The charms unparagoned of sea and land ; 
 Then slowly pace along the' enchanted plain. 
 And halt for noontide rest beside the strand 
 Where, of this fairy wilderness the queen, 
 Sits Ballachulish throned in majesty serene. 
 
 BALLACHULISH. 
 
 Sweet paradise beneath the mountains rude 
 That sentinel Glencoe's terrific vale. 
 Smile ever thus in peace and solitude, 
 
 Smooth be thy lake, and gentle be the gale. 
 Methinks good angels are abroad, and sing 
 At morn, or noon, or eve, or moonlight pale.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 95 
 
 High hallelujahs to the' Omnific King 
 
 Who bade thee in thine awful beauty show 
 What primal Eden was, ere yet the sting- 
 
 Of sin and death had marred the bliss below. 
 Oh, were the season ripe to quit the roar 
 Of life, and all its turbulence of woe, 
 
 Here would I wait my voyage to that shore 
 
 Where sorrow, pain, and guilt shall be no more ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 The ferry past, we rove along the shore 
 Of Appin : Morven's rugged hills behind 
 Frown darkly; while in close array before 
 The summits inaccessible that bind 
 The fiital valley, into grandeur soar. 
 Dilating every moment, as they wind 
 Beside the' Aceldama whereon the ban 
 Abides for evermore of nature, God, and man.
 
 96 fORT WILTJAM 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Here, if we would awake the thrilling- strain 
 That purifies the heart by fear and woe. 
 We need but look upon the mountain chain, 
 Fold within fold entwisted round Glencoe ; 
 We need but think upon the vengeful Thane, 
 The fawning perfidy, the' assassin foe. 
 The Judas courtesy, the polluted rite 
 Of hospitality, the carnage-shrieks of night. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Chaos on chaos piled, those hills of gloom 
 
 Imprison the disastrous den of shame. 
 
 The slaughtered clansmen's dwelling-place and 
 
 tomb, 
 Where memory sighs, and shudders at the name 
 So marked, so branded by eternal doom. 
 Even light, that crimsons with ethereal flame 
 All else, reluctant shines where Cona's flood 
 Beheld the fiendly deed, and foamed with infant blood.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 97 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Advance — look in — tread, if thou dare, the deep ; 
 Bold mortal he who first its terrors tried, 
 Braving the pendulous cliff, the desperate leap, 
 The clinging scramble, and the giddy stride. 
 A thousand cataracts have worn the steep, 
 A thousand storms have scarred on either side 
 The crags that overhang from base to brow ; 
 While eagles scream above, and torrents roar below. 
 
 GLENCOE. (2nd). 
 
 Keep silence, lest the rocks in thunder fall ; 
 Keep silence, lest we wake the hapless dead. 
 Whose blood is crying from the ground to call 
 
 The doom of justice on the murderer's head. 
 Dark and more dark, ye shades of evening, lour. 
 Wide and more wide, ye gathering tempests, spread 
 
 u
 
 98 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 Thick clouds and waters round the' Avenging Power 
 Whose malison is here : the river moans. 
 The wind with deepening sigh from hour to hour 
 Saddens the gloom ; a curse is on the ground ; 
 From every caverned cliff sepulchral groans 
 Appal the desolation ; and around 
 The melancholy mountains loathe the sun : 
 And shall ; till the career of Time be done. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Though solitude and contemplation reign 
 Where Dove meanders through his craggy dale, 
 Though such as rove Killarney's wild domain 
 Look round and tremble in Dunlow's dark vale. 
 Though Aberglaslynn silence the profane, 
 And turn the cheek of unbeliever pale. 
 Yet sterner presence clouds the mountain throne, 
 Saddens the desert here, and chills the blood to stone.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 99 
 
 XX. 
 
 Pass of Llanberis, vaunt, if such thy will, 
 The double range of crags that might entomb 
 A nation in their fall ; more savage still 
 Frown, Gordale, in thy grimliness and gloom, 
 Transfixing each beholder with the thrill 
 Of shuddering awe : ye cannot image doom 
 And horror like this universe of dread. 
 The dungeon of despair, of darkness and the dead. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 How must we tug, and toil, and pant amain 
 Where, traverse over traverse, coils the track 
 Of exit hence : the breath is drawn with pain. 
 Pulse throbs, and ancles ache, and sinews crack. 
 And oft, full oft, we wish (but wish in vain) 
 Our labour done ; ere from the summit back 
 We look, and breathe, but sore adust and tlry. 
 With little voice or heart to vaunt our victory. 
 
 11 2
 
 100 FORT- WILLIAM 
 
 XXIJ. 
 
 Look on the' abysme unfathomably below 
 Receding downward from the baffled eye, 
 While the broad shadows from each mountain's 
 
 brow 
 Make darkness ere 't is night ; ere yet on high 
 The stars emerge amid the fading glow 
 Where late the sun descended from the sky. 
 The vapours spread, the dews of evening fall. 
 And shapes meteorous glide, and uncouth gibberings 
 
 call. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Look not too long, lest in the glimmering light 
 Strange phantoms from the dreadful deep ascend ; 
 But, shunning with averted face the sight. 
 Along- the moorland desolation bend 
 In silence, haste, and fear, the timely flight 
 Through solitude where sullenly impend 
 Cloud, mist, and storm. At length, our journey 
 done. 
 The resting-place we greet with pilgrim's benison.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 101 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 King^s-House — the welcome tenement so name — 
 Though yet unknown to Phoebus and the Nine, 
 Nor even in liumble prose revealed to fame, 
 Till peace and order walked the Highland Line, 
 Yet, but for one small want, might well proclaim 
 " Good cheer, and ease, and comfort I combine. 
 And rightfully am fair hospitium held 
 For tlame, peer, commoner, brisk youth, and sapient 
 eld." 
 
 KING'S-HOUSE. 
 
 Lone caravansarai ! in what a wild 
 
 Of dreariness and grandeur dost thou wait 
 
 Belated wanderers, and unfold the eate 
 
 Of welcome : never grain nor herbage smiled 
 
 On the grim barrier round tlie marish piled. 
 In waste like this, metliinks, the stern debate
 
 102 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 Was heard, when wrapt in wiles the potentate 
 Of hell and darkness fain would have beguiled 
 
 The Son of Man. A mystery on that hour 
 Hath fallen, not yet to heaven or earth revealed 
 Enough, that every ordinance and sign 
 
 Is mercy, though awhile the Book be sealed. 
 Till sound the trumpet of judicial power. 
 And angel harbinger give note of doom divine. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Toil is a feather, weighed against the joy 
 Of bold adventure and propitious close. 
 What matter, though ten thousand ills annoy. 
 If at the last our banquet be repose 
 And slumber? the rich draught that ne'er can cloy, 
 The balm of care, and anodyne of woes ; 
 That makes to warrior, wayfarer, or clown. 
 The heather and the rock more soft than bed of down.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 103 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 What freshness in the breeze ! and from the shrine 
 Of early dawn, what clouds of incense steam ! 
 What call is heard, as of a voice divine, 
 To meditate the' Invisible Supreme 
 Who bids the sun on good and evil shine. 
 And mercy on the world of sinners beam ; 
 And from the dunghill or the dungeon calls 
 To the new Solyma's salvation-builded walls ! 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Rugged and black the desert stretches round 
 In silence and in loneliness reclined ; 
 No damsel lilts, no choral groves resound, 
 As up the long, unvaried slope we wind ; 
 Till swelling o'er the valley's darksome bound. 
 And o'er the fog-banks of the north behind, 
 Ben-Nevis rear his cloud-coUectino- form 
 Wrapt — lik(^ futurity— in murkiness and storm.
 
 '04 FORT- WILLI AM 
 
 XXVIIL 
 
 Yet wherefore thus the years unborn imbue 
 With colour not their own P the present, past. 
 Remote, or future, as they rise to view. 
 Are in the changeful mould of Fancy cast. 
 And Melancholy paints them with the hue 
 Of death, and starts at her own work aghast. 
 Nor calls to mind the Governor of all. 
 Without whose word and will shall not a sparrow fall. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Misdoubt not then futurity. Forbear, 
 Poor craven heart, to question the decree 
 Of Wisdom Infinite ; nor let despair 
 Forget the mountain of the sanctuary. 
 Where in the fragrance of celestial air 
 From earth's turmoil we may expatiate free. 
 And, looking down, see sorrow and affright 
 Melt in vacuity like visions of the night.
 
 JO EDINBURGH. lOo 
 
 XXX. 
 
 So muse we, till the cool and lonely bower 
 Of Inverouran, tempt our weary feet : 
 The Sybarite's regale, the conqueror's power. 
 The monarch's crown, might envy such retreat. 
 There is an hour for resting, and an hour 
 For action, and an hour for counsel meet; 
 And more than all, an hour for holy calm. 
 When piety and faith diffuse ethereal balm. 
 
 INVEROURAN. 
 
 Here stretched amid the broom, to mope at ease, 
 With what a gust we scent the breath of morn. 
 And pore upon the bridge, the cot, the trees. 
 And unsubstantial shapes of fancy boin 
 
 That mock the grasp, and laugli pursuit to scorn ; 
 The while an ever-salient power to please
 
 ^06 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 Is felt in every murmur of the breeze, 
 
 The purpled heath, and verdure of the thorn. 
 
 Is it a dream ? or have I left behind 
 
 The Limbo where poor mortals fret and moil ? 
 And have I changed the bondage-house of care 
 
 For the free flight of disembodied mind 
 To meads of asphodel, and heavenly soil. 
 And glades of paradise for ever fresh and fair ? 
 
 XXXL 
 
 What wisdom and what harmony ordain 
 The seasons, and the circle of the year. 
 Give law to storms, arouse or quell the main. 
 Balance the poles, and regulate the sphere. 
 And recompence provide for every pain — 
 Eternity of peace for transient fear ; 
 While heat and cold, the winter and the storm. 
 The high behest of Love Omnipotent perform !
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 107 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Health to the mind, adversity's rough gale 
 Imparts, and oft to genius gives the spring ; 
 While breathes prosperity upon the vale 
 Of sloth, and scatters from her dragon wing 
 Plague, pestilence, and death. Put on the mail 
 Of truth, be constant to thy God and King, 
 Live for thy Country to the latest breath. 
 Wield weapon, toil and war envisage, grapple death ; 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Yet fail not, amid all, to walk apart 
 With patriarch and with prophet in the land 
 Of Palestine, and lift to heaven the heart 
 In contemplation high. So shall the band 
 Of angels tutelar avert each dart 
 Aimed by the primal adversary's hand. 
 Purge from tliy heart the Pharisee's proud leaven, 
 And seal thee with the mark of saints elect for heaven.
 
 108 
 
 FORT- WILLIAM 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Anon we march, and pass the scanty flood 
 Slow-trickling through the heath ; and on the right 
 The grave ancestral manor-hall, with wood 
 Umbraged around : the precinct and the site 
 Breathe peace ; and augur rule of chieftain good. 
 Who walked by reason and religion's light, 
 A father of his people, and a tower 
 Of refuge from the heat, the whirlwind and the shower. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Unclouded flames the sun, the winds are still, 
 Hushed are the meads, and hushed the mountains 
 
 green. 
 Beneath us without murmur glides the rill. 
 Nor wakes an echo of the deep serene 
 Where sign of man is none : hill over hill. 
 Glen opening into glen, alone are seen ; 
 And clifi" pyramidal, whose lofty brow 
 Strikes wonder and dismay through all that pass 
 below.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 109 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Tyndrum receives us next ; where huge Ben-More 
 Warns, without speech or language, the profane 
 To feel the' Eternal Presence, and adore 
 The Ruler of the tempest and the main, 
 Abjuring the false unbeliever's lore. 
 The heart sophisticate and cobweb brain, 
 That undisturbed by guilty thought or care. 
 The still small voice within may utter praise and 
 prayer. 
 
 TYNDRUM. 
 
 Here might retreating life its rest secure — 
 All else foregone — beside the bank of green 
 That overhangs the mountain-streamlet pure. 
 
 And sees yon azure summits tower serene 
 Above the vaporous gloom, and hears them call 
 The soul of solitude from care and spleen
 
 110 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 Into that sanctuary where vanish all 
 
 The gauds of vain prosperity and povrer, 
 More sudden than the leaves in autumn fall, 
 
 Or meteors from the sky. Man's closing hour 
 Is half celestial ; and like him of old. 
 In flame of sacrifice from Manoah's bower 
 
 Ascending, soars from this corporeal mould, 
 
 With saints in heaven communion high to hold. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Gradual we sink to where beneath the steep 
 Ascent of rock and tree the ruined pile 
 Of Castle-Dochart rears his double keep, 
 And seems to ponder with a mournful smile 
 How in the greenwood ambuscaded deep 
 He warded once the lake and lonesome isle : 
 But war and chivalry have had their day ; 
 Feud, foray, battle-raid, and siege are swept away
 
 TO EDTNBimCH. Ill 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 No boat of bandit lurks within the cove, 
 No din of battle in the wind we hear. 
 Claymore nor targe is glittering in the grove, • 
 Nor flame the battlements with mail and spear ; 
 No coursers tramp, no plundering barons rove. 
 Not even a Highland cateran hovers near; 
 Unharmed the crop, and tranquil is the fold. 
 And here and there blue wreaths from cottage roof 
 are rolled. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Bosomed in sequestration, we recal 
 Full many a tender thought, or hallowed theme. 
 While listening to the water's distant fall 
 We saunter by the windings of the stream, 
 And watch how shades of twilight slowly pall 
 Of yonder Occident the saffron gleam : 
 Till rest and comfort, shelter and supply. 
 And salutation bland, Luib's fair hostelry
 
 112 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 XL. 
 
 Bestows, wherein at ease to court the gale 
 
 Of incense from the fields, and every sound 
 
 From flock and herd ; while mellowing in the pale 
 
 Of yonder moon, lie couchant all around 
 
 The soft amenities of hill and dale. 
 
 The copse-fringed flood, the height with forest 
 
 crowned. 
 Where all the melancholy charms of night 
 Blend thoughts of home and heaven in awe-chastised 
 
 delight. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Witch, warlock, wizard, incubus or ghost. 
 Approach not here to vex the mystic eye 
 Of slumber, but the groves of happy coast 
 Bermudan, domes of Persian luxury. 
 Before us float; beyond the starry host. 
 Self-balanced, without wing, aloft we fly. 
 And in a calenture of bliss behold 
 More than the heart can image, or the tongue unfold.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 1 13 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Cheered by tlie vision, forth at peep of clay 
 We sally, scramble up the mountain side. 
 And the rough height surmounting, downward stray 
 Through rifted hollow, till its outlet wide 
 And wider spread into the sylvan bay 
 Where gently with the morning breezes chide 
 The waters of Loch-Earne in music rude 
 Of solitary peace, and nature's gratitude. 
 
 LOCH-EARNE. 
 
 Hail, mountains! underneath whose shadow sleep 
 The waters of the lake. In such a fane 
 Be never wanting the triumphal strain 
 Of pilgrims from the glen's abysses deep 
 
 Emerging, here the matin-watch to keep 
 Of adoration, while the heart and brain 
 Are caught away in visions of the train 
 From city of Destruction up the steep 
 
 I
 
 114 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 Ascending to the wicket, and the way 
 Which once Messiah trod : a little time. 
 And victory is their own : from sphere to sphere. 
 
 For ever brightening to the perfect day. 
 
 From strength to strength the' eternal hills they 
 
 climb, 
 And to the God of gods in highest heaven appear. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Stealing along the cool sequestered vale. 
 We pass Balquhidder, and the solemn shore 
 Of Lubnaig's lake, promiscuously where sail 
 The thickly-coming clouds, and whiten o'er 
 Craig-na-coheilg, that lifts its summit pale 
 Like some vast citadel, in days of yore 
 The domicile of law-disdaining pride. 
 Whose tyrant domination heaven and earth defied.
 
 TO EDINBlRXill. 115 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 At length the waste is chequered by the green 
 Of here a bush, a tree or thicket there ; 
 And as the lake is left behind, are seen 
 The forests wide-expanding, till appear 
 At full the wonders of the chasm between 
 Ben-Ledi's vastness and the front austere 
 Of yon deep-glooming rival heights, o'erspread 
 With woods before, behind, beneath, and overhead, 
 
 XLV. 
 
 And opening sullen entrance through the mound 
 Of Highland barrier-hills, where tangled shade 
 And grove-invested steeps imbower aroun d 
 And overarch the path that through the glade 
 Meandering hangs above the gulf profound 
 Where foams the Teitb in many a hoarse cascade. 
 Accordant to the moaning of the trees 
 Where oracles of woe are muttered by the breeze. 
 
 I 2
 
 11^ FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Surely if mortal e'er fit region found 
 The world and all things worldly to forget. 
 And over fantasy's perplexing ground 
 Self-guided, and self-lost, to fume and fret ; 
 Here were the place and time for endless round 
 Of wild imaginings in tumult met. 
 Like currents of the restless atmosphere. 
 That come we know not whence, and go we know not 
 where. 
 
 XLVIL 
 
 Here, then, the secret influence let us wait 
 That gives to silence and to solitude 
 An eloquence of heaven; at evening late. 
 Morning or noontide, fills the desert rude 
 With visitants divine, and opes a gate 
 Where never doubt nor evil can intrude ; 
 A gate of entrance to the bright domain. 
 Where all of good and pure in blissful glory reign.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 117 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Cares of mere sense, avaunt ! and let the soul 
 Make proof of her prerog-ative to climb 
 Where stars in harmony mysterious roll. 
 From motion or from matter, chance or time, 
 The' immortal spirit may not brook control ; 
 But swifter than the light careers sublime 
 From earth to heaven, and through the void of 
 niglit 
 And chaos, far beyond creation's realm, takes lhi,dit. 
 
 PASS OF LEDl. 
 
 The ruddy Occident still fires thy brow, 
 
 Ben-Ledi, while through twilight gloom the flood 
 Murmurs in cataract and foam below 
 Its vespers to the wide-imbowering wood 
 
 Where oft, commercing with the skies, hath stood 
 The eremite, and summed their burning row ; 
 Or sought, in musings on the lioly rood, 
 A foretaste of immortal bliss to know.
 
 118 FORT- WILLI AM 
 
 And though the ravens came not, even or morn. 
 Nor angels ministrant forsook the skies 
 To cheer him, or to guide his wanderings lone. 
 
 Yet shall his orisons be heavenward borne 
 In fumes of mystic frankincense, and rise 
 With sweet memorial to Jehovah's throne. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 But calm and contemplation now aloof 
 Are driven awhile, as issuing from the glen 
 We hail the hedge-row, and the slated roof. 
 And every where the cheerful traces ken 
 Of industry; and hear and see wheel, hoof, 
 And axle, all the din and stir of men. 
 Swains, damsels, sportsmen, tourists, a strange olio, 
 Kine, donkies, shandrydan and chaise, a huge imbro- 
 glio.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 1 It) 
 
 L. 
 
 As when a gallant argosy is blown 
 By tempest from her destined course afar, 
 And winds through archipelago unknown 
 Her watchful course, by compass, lead and star : 
 So stunned, surrounded, well-nigh overthrown. 
 By infantry, by cavalry, by car. 
 We toil through pain and peril, fears and foes. 
 To find in Callander's romantic town repose. 
 
 CALLANDER. 
 
 Here, issuing from the mountains, let us pay 
 The homage of our praises to the hand 
 That shaped the formless infinite, and spanned 
 This universe. The heart is lifeless clay 
 
 That to the visiting of heaven's own ray 
 
 Relents not. Though the sun and moon, with band 
 
 Lavisible, draw after them o'er strand 
 
 And shoal, up strait and river, creek and bay.
 
 120 FORT- WILLI AM 
 
 Obsequious ocean ; yet, if winter seize 
 
 The stiffening sea, in vain their powers combine 
 To bid the marble waters ebb and flow. 
 
 So feels the frozen heart no genial breeze, 
 Nor softens to the touch of beam divine. 
 Nor chickens, till the trump of judgment blow. 
 
 LI. 
 
 But why the wearyful romaunt prolong 
 Of onward travel many a rugged mile P 
 Already live in ever-during song 
 Loch-Achray, and the Trosach's green defile, 
 Loch-Katrine, and the goblin troops that throng 
 Her caverns, and the mountains of Glengyle. 
 While Ellen, and the Douglas, and the Knight 
 Of Snowdown, come like shadows, shadow-like take 
 flight.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 121 
 
 LII. 
 
 Hark to the baying of the noble hound. 
 Hark to the blast of venerie ! — the horn 
 That bids Ben-An and Ben-Venue resound 
 Ten thousand echoes to the shouts of morn! 
 The hart is roused, and with elastic bound 
 Breaks from the covert of the fern and thorn. 
 Speeds down the wind, derides the lessening cry, 
 And swears the kingly oath, " I scorn this day to die. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Urge not the chase, rash hunter, but beware : 
 Thyself art spear-doomed ; listen, and look back : 
 Already round thee winds the secret snare. 
 The dogs of havoc open on thy track : 
 Signs and prognostications earth and air 
 Disquiet ; tempest growls, the skies are black ; 
 And underneath is heard a boding sound. 
 Ere yet with death and ruin earthquake strew the 
 ground.
 
 *^^ FORT- WILLI AM 
 
 LIV. 
 See, from his cavern the demoniac sire 
 Who prays not, weeps not, knows not hope nor 
 sleep, 
 
 Comes; not to bless, but ban. To spread the dire 
 Alarum of the war, see Malise leap. 
 Run, climb, wade, swim : behold the cross of fire : 
 Hark how the slogan rings on plain or steep 
 From the fast-gathering- clan : the rebel sword 
 Is drawn, and mortal strife at Coilantogle ford 
 
 LV. 
 
 Crimsons the heath : but, oh ! forbear to wake 
 The sphere-descended powers that dormant lie 
 Amid the moorland, or beneath the lake ; 
 For much adventures he who dares to try 
 In dingle or on cliff, in moss or brake. 
 The sprite-evoking song of gramarye ; 
 Haughty the spirits are, and hard to call ; 
 And thou must conquer them, or be their mock and 
 thrall.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 123 
 
 LVI. 
 
 To him resign them who alone can sway 
 Their sceptre, and their waywardness control : 
 Hear thou, but mimic not, the potent lay 
 That wraps in bliss the self-surrendered soul. 
 A thousand visions all around thee play, 
 A thousand varied scenes before thee roll. 
 And while the mighty master swells the strain. 
 Fire kindles in the heart, (ire kindles in the brain. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Enough, that up the' enchanted lake we went, 
 And overland to Mull of Inversnaid, 
 And (where Loch-Lomond's overflow finds vent) 
 To Leven's classic stream our tribute paid ; 
 Dun-Britton passed, our course to Glasgow bent. 
 Yet scarce to view St. Mungo's fane delayed ; 
 But hurried on, impatient to behold 
 Edina from afar her stately charms unfold.
 
 124 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Lovely art thou, Edina, in thine hour 
 Of lettered ease, magnificence serene! 
 But if unwonted tidings in thy bower 
 Be heard, or high occasion intervene. 
 Then dost thou line the beach, and man the tower. 
 And lift the head with more imperial mien. 
 And in dilated majesty the call 
 Attend of war or peace, debate or festival. 
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 Queen of the North ! he comes from ocean's tide : 
 Throne thee, the castle crown be on thy brow : 
 Array thee in the robes of power and pride, 
 And from the mountain of thy presence throw 
 
 Thine eagle glance upon the pomp below. 
 
 Where from each western isle or mountain side. 
 Or where the Grampians lift their peaks of snow. 
 The plume and tartan in procession wide
 
 TO EDINBURGH. l^O 
 
 Mix with the warriors of each Lowland vale ; 
 
 And let old Arthur from his seat rebound 
 
 The jubilee that swells upon the gale. 
 Ten thousand thousand welcomes all around : 
 
 He comes; the monarch comes : health and all hail ! 
 
 One voice, one heart, one ecstasy resound. 
 
 LIX. 
 Up to the Calton, and behold the deep 
 Far eastward spreading beyond reach of sight. 
 And mark how gratitude has crowned tlie steep 
 With monument of Nelson and of ficht; 
 And let not meditation idly sleep, 
 But with enraptured eye pursue the light 
 Of ocean's cynosure, that oe'r the wave 
 Through thunder and through nigjit to victory led 
 the brave.
 
 1"26 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 LX. 
 
 Let others celebrate the hero's praise 
 With hig-h-raised harmony in palace hall. 
 Join voice and harping in triumphal lays. 
 Or clarion-like proclaim the festival. 
 Or in cathedral aisle the dirges raise 
 Of Albion, mourning o'er the Conqueroi-'s fall : 
 Be mine the tribute of a ruder strain, 
 Responsive to the winds and murmur of the main. 
 
 TRAFALGAR. 
 
 Sailors, listen to my story ; 
 
 Sons of tempest and of war ! 
 'T is of Nelson and of glory, 
 
 Off the Cape of Trafalgar. 
 
 Nation celebrate to nation, 
 
 Age to age resound the name ; 
 
 Sea and land with acclamation 
 Swell the chorus of his fame.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 12' 
 
 Life to clay, and death to morrow; 
 
 Soon the radiant vision fled : 
 Silent homage, silent sorrow. 
 
 Are the trophies of the dead. 
 
 Europe, Afric, tell with wonder 
 How he humbled Gaul and Dane ; 
 
 How he overwhelmed in thunder 
 
 Fleets combined of France and Spain. 
 
 They come — from Cadiz on the venture 
 They come, of ruin or renown. 
 
 Britain meets them — to their centre 
 Nelson, Collingwood bear down. 
 
 Glory or death ! for action clearincr. 
 
 Wait our admiral's last command : 
 See the signal, hark the cheering, 
 
 One and all, fight heart and hand !
 
 128 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 The flash, the smoke, the dark commotion. 
 The deepening peals of havoc tell 
 
 (Such the heraldry of ocean) 
 Nelson conquered — Nelson fell ! 
 
 Dear we bought the day, though glorious ; 
 
 The battle won, the hero lost ; 
 From storm, from combat safe — victorious, 
 
 Prayer shall sanctify our host. 
 
 Crowds triumphant, yet deploring, 
 Gaze in reverence on his tomb ; 
 
 Sire of Heaven, we bend adoring 
 To thy bounty, or thy doom. 
 
 Holland, Gallia, Spain assemble. 
 Ruin waits you here, and shame ; 
 
 Let invasion hear, and tremble, 
 
 RusselPs, Marlborough's, Nelson's name.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 129 
 
 LXI. 
 
 Turn now to loftier enterprise, and breast 
 The steep that once claimed pilgrimage and vow ; 
 Pass fount and fane of Antony the blest. 
 Nor tarry, till thou stand on Arthur's brow. 
 Strong as the Kenite in his rocky nest. 
 With what a hum the city swarms below ; 
 And what a boundlessness beyond we hail 
 Of ocean, isle, and frith, of mountain, wood, and vale. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Hath not archangel on this craggy seat 
 Kept watch in guardianship of realm so fair. 
 Listening, while from the hermit saint's retreat 
 The midnight hymn came floating on the air. 
 And heaven itself was opened to the sweet 
 Immortal incense of the good man's prayer P 
 Methinks the ground is holy, and the mind 
 Is borne away, and leaves the moilal coil behind. 
 
 K
 
 130 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 O, rapture and entrancement ! happier far 
 Than all the world holds dearest, thus to fly; 
 Beyond the comet or the sun's bright car. 
 The' abyss of undiscovered worlds to try 
 To hear the carol of the morning-star. 
 And mingle in mysterious colloquy 
 With spheres that, gliding in melodious chime. 
 Rule day and night, and mark the bounds of space 
 and time. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Question them of their birth, and why they rove, 
 Question them, their Creator's hand to know ; 
 Ask of his wonders in the height above. 
 Ask of his wonders in the depth below ; 
 Ask the primeval sons of light and love ; 
 And ask the seraphim's refulgent row; — 
 But who hath seen the countenance divine. 
 Or looked upon the blaze of that unclouded shrine ?
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 Not the Seven Spirits, the living lamps, can tell 
 The mystery of Him who reigns alone 
 Enshrouded in the light ineftable, 
 The temple that may be approached of none. 
 Where from eterne the Word and Wisdom dwell 
 Beside the Majesty upon the throne; 
 And all the worlds in adoration bend 
 To the Triune without beginning, bound, or end. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 The night and day, the vigil and the sleep, 
 Hosanna to the Holy One proclaim : 
 Heaven and heaven's host before him silence keep. 
 Night and destruction hear the mighty Name, 
 And tremble ; but behold him not : the deep 
 Cannot contain Him : and all nature's frame 
 Is wielded by the' illimitable hand 
 Easier than ocean storms dislodge a grain of sand. 
 
 K 2
 
 , I 
 
 132 FORT-WILLIAM 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Hosanna from all creatures for the boon 
 Of life, be sung aloud from sphere to sphere 
 Hosanna from the morning and the noon, 
 Hosanna from the seasons and the year, 
 Hosanna from the glimpses of the moon, 
 Hosanna from the bridegroom sun's career ! 
 Let length and breadth, let depth and height pro- 
 long 
 Throughout eternity the triumph and the song ! 
 
 Lxvin. 
 
 Heaven gates have lifted up their heads on high. 
 The everlasting doors are opening wide : 
 O, to look in, and with permitted eye 
 Behold the throne, the rainbow, and the tide 
 Of crystal seas before the sanctuary ! 
 Vain hope : in darkness and dispersion glide 
 The symbols and the cherubim: while frail 
 Mortality sinks back to this sublunar vale.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 133 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Ah, me ! that earth-born care can downward draw 
 The spirit from its heaven-directed flight ; 
 And o'er the vision of exulting awe 
 Throw unrelentingly the veil of night. 
 But change, and doubt, and trial are the law 
 Ordained for man : and from the brief delight 
 Time and the hour our vagrant thouglit recal. 
 And, disenchanted, prone to nether earth we fall. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 Yes, we must hence : one look, and we are gone : 
 One look again, one lingering moment more. 
 O'er goodlier land hath ever sunbeam shone ? 
 O'er race more apt in serviceable lore 
 Of arts and arms, more prompt to buckle on 
 For freedom, and to brave the battle's roar? 
 Once more, a last, last look : rest is not given 
 
 To man, till he ascend the Solyma of heaven.
 
 134 FOKT-WILLIAM TO EDINBURGH. 
 
 DEPARTURE. 
 
 Haunt of the bard and painter ! hardy child 
 Of nature, cradled in the giant arms 
 Of winter, and the lonely mountains wild, 
 
 I leave thee, Caledonia ; but thy charms 
 
 Are pictured on my heart. May never tread 
 Of foemen, nor the trumpet of alai-ms 
 
 Approach thee more ; but peace and plenty spread 
 Their mantle o'er thee, and the laurelled crown 
 Of science grace thy castellated head. 
 
 For me, till health and reason's self be flown. 
 
 The thought shall kindle, and the tongue shall tell 
 Thy lakes and rocks, thy patriots and renown. 
 
 Land of the frith, the cataract, and the dell. 
 
 Land of the Wallace and the Bruce, farewel ! 
 
 END OF PART I.
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED.
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 I. 
 
 Thrice luith the globe her annual orbit rolled " 
 Since first beyond the fortress and the fane 
 Of Luguballia,* over moor and wold 
 I strayed promiscuously, o'er loch and plain, 
 At morning-, noon, or eve, tlirougli heat and cold. 
 The calm or storm, the mountain or the main. 
 To ruminate on Staffa's columned shore. 
 Or round lona hear the voice of ocean roar. 
 
 • Luguballia was the ancient name of Carlisle.
 
 138 TO INVERARY. 
 
 II. 
 
 So much the nearer to the care and sloom 
 Of age, disease, decrepitude, and woe ; 
 So much the nearer to the silent tomb 
 Whither of earth all generations go ; 
 So much the nearer to the peal of doom 
 That thundering through the' abyss, shall overthrow 
 The starry host, and harbinger the day 
 When the last foe shall own Messiah's conquering 
 sway. 
 
 III. 
 
 Awake, bestir thee ; nearer is the time : 
 Awake, bestir thee ; louder is the call : 
 A cloud of witnesses behold thee climb, 
 A host of fiends will triumph if thou fall. 
 Awake, bestir thee ; journey in the prime 
 Of day, ere eve and night o'ershadow all ; 
 Fly from the burning city ; look not back ; 
 Turn not to right or left, nor linger on the track,
 
 TO INVERAPvY. 139 
 
 IV. 
 
 Nor roam at random on the' Enchanted Ground^ 
 Nor slumber in the banquet bovver of sin ; 
 For close beside the path lie swamps profound. 
 And precipice or pitfall, lure or gin ; 
 But watch, and though infernal armies round 
 Environ, thou shalt conquer, thou shalt win : 
 There is a lamp, there is a guide at hand, 
 Chariots of fire, and choirs of angels round thee stand. 
 
 V. 
 
 Have we not erst in vision on the height 
 Of Nebo with the Law and Proj)hets been ? 
 Have we not on the mountains of delight 
 A glimpse of the Celestial City seen ? 
 Let the remembrance of that heavenly sight 
 For ever purify each thought terrene. 
 Nor let the Tempter and the world come nigh 
 Where cloud and seraphim o'ershade the sanctuary.
 
 140 TO INVERARY. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Dreams have their mysteries, and darkly tell 
 Of things our waking hours had never known ; 
 And many a time from its corporeal cell 
 The spirit, half let free, by night hath flown, 
 Updarting to the world invisible, 
 And realms beyond the grave in semblance shown ^ 
 While emblem, type, and oracle are given 
 In slumber, that prepare the heart for guests of 
 heaven; 
 
 VII. 
 
 High privilege hath man : not like the mole 
 In night and drowsihed ignobly pent. 
 But mounting on the light unwearied sole 
 Of enterprise through hour and element. 
 Exploring seas, or musing on the pole. 
 With heart and mind for ever upward bent. 
 Till contemplation, native of the skies. 
 Through vestibule of earth to the third heaven arise.
 
 TO TNVERARY. Ill 
 
 VIII. 
 
 All else is but vicissitude unci fume : 
 The child to boy is changed, to man the boy; 
 The man, decayed to gout, old age, and rheum. 
 Can hear no melody, can feel no joy. 
 And wilt thou, stripling, on thy strength presume. 
 And truck health, fame, and wisdom for a toy ? 
 But know; each word is passing in review ; 
 Even thoughts are registered, and judgment must 
 ensue. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Friends, fellow-pilgrims, let the free-born soul 
 The yoke of folly and of sloth disdain ; 
 Let not your hours in blank inertness roll. 
 Nor dull delay your energies enchain. 
 To-day we deck the board, or crown the bowl, 
 Toil up the steep, or loiter on the plain ; 
 To-morrow ; and your monitor is gone : 
 To-morrow ; and your own career of life is done.
 
 142 TO INVERARY. 
 
 The power and harmony to wake the lyre, 
 
 Or pour the heart into the' impassioned lay, 
 
 Are gifts of heaven ; and to the' Omnific Sire 
 
 Are pledged their adoration to repay. 
 
 Let them not kindle with unhallowed fire. 
 
 Scatter them not around in vacant play, 
 
 Nor cull them to embalm a deed of blame. 
 
 Nor twine them in the wreath of luxury and shame. 
 
 XI. 
 
 To thee my harp was tuned. Eternal King, 
 When through the verdant maze of youth I ran ; 
 Nor idle was the voice, nor mute the string. 
 When time and care had ripened into man ; 
 And now, in life's decline, till voice to sing 
 Be wanting, let me end as I began ; 
 A supplication in the parting sigh ; 
 And in the dying gasp, a hymn to God on high.
 
 TO INVERARY. 143 
 
 XII. 
 
 Meantime, companioned with a sprightly pair. 
 Aspirants of the Muse and classic lore. 
 Whom Rhedycina's or whom Granta's care 
 Must guide ere long to fame, I haunt the shore 
 Wliere Liverpool collects all produce rare 
 From either Ind, till groan the vault and store, 
 The Customs and the Docks, the land and sea. 
 And yon colossal house of wares, ycleped Goree. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 What heat, what crowd, what hubhub, and what 
 
 din. 
 What art, what industry, what gain, what wealth. 
 What toil, late ending, early to begin. 
 The respite of a meal scarce won by stealth ; 
 And, ah ! disdainful of potations thin. 
 With alcohol they wither strength and health ; 
 So wilfully wo plunge to Avant and woej 
 So sure is man himself to man the deadliest foe.
 
 144 TO INVERARY. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 But what escape ? shall necromancei*'s wand 
 Our half-stunned trepidation hence convey ? 
 Or hippogrif o'er ocean and o'er land 
 To Caledonia wing our aery way ? 
 Patience ; the spell is working ; near the strand 
 See steam's Leviathan impatient stay ; 
 She groans, she gapes ; we sink into her womb ; 
 And held in durance there, await perforce our doom. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Worse sound, worse vision, over eyes and ears 
 Of night-mare ridden epicure ne'er past ; 
 Not string, nor reed, nor song can harmonize 
 The beating of her engine, and the blast. 
 Nor cabin gay nor awning can disguise 
 Her graceless outline and her chimney mast : 
 And while indignant Mersey round her raves. 
 Morose she lumbers on, the scarecrow of the waves.
 
 TO INVERARY. 145 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The bar is past, the deep expands before, 
 Lancastria, Cestria, sink on either hand ; 
 And even the giant cone of Cambria's shore 
 Shows like a phantom hill of fairy hand. 
 The sun is gone, the surge is heard no more. 
 The breezes languish into slumber bland j 
 And one vast mirror gives l)ack lieaven more fair. 
 While boundless ocean melts into the boundless air. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Here in mid-channel, under cloud of night. 
 To rumination render up the mind. 
 And Him adore who made the dark and light. 
 The warmth and calm, the winter and the wind; 
 And ponder the foregone, and let the flight 
 Of thought and recollection unonfined 
 Rove backward ; the departed hour review. 
 Fight o'er again the fight, the toil and hope renew. 
 
 L
 
 14(i TO INVERARY. 
 
 RETROSPECTION. 
 
 What phantoms of the past in mystery sleep, 
 Till memory (warder of the gloom profound) 
 Wake at a sight, an odour, or a sound. 
 And call the long-forgotten from the deep 
 
 To soothe us or to sting : then sinners reap 
 The harvest of their guilt : what cries astound. 
 What furies and what fiends environ round 
 Their death-bed anguish : grief that cannot weep^ 
 
 Remorse that dare not hope. But how divine 
 The pledge of immortality, when bright 
 The lamp of conscience burns, and heavenly balm 
 
 And heavenly vision gladden the decline 
 Of age with images of rest and calm. 
 The better Canaan's realm, the Solyma of light.
 
 TO INVERAKY. 147 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 How lovely in Italian clime the fall 
 Of eve, when twilight glimmering' in the west 
 Lets not a breeze disturb the' aerial hall. 
 While solitude and peace and gloom invest 
 The landscape, vocal to the goatherd's call. 
 Or blackbird piping in his bower of rest, 
 And from afar the quail* is heard to pay 
 The tribute of her moan to the departing day. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Not so the changeful North, where brief repose 
 Yields to commotion, transient warmth to cold. 
 Where lingering winter checks the budding rose, 
 And shrivels up the violet's tender fold ; 
 Where like an ague-fit spring comes and goes. 
 While Capricornus and Aquarius hold ' 
 Petrific domination ; and with storm 
 And glacial influences the summer's pomp deform. 
 * ode squilla di lontano, 
 
 Che paja '1 giorno pianger, clie si miiore. — Dante. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 TO INVERARY. 
 
 X. 
 
 Prophetic fear ! even now the scud and cloud 
 Are muffling up the stars: a chilly blast 
 At first remotely moans ; then near and loud 
 Makes war on sleep : the gloom descending fast 
 Broods on the widely-swelling surge : the shroud 
 Sighs to the canvass and the labouring mast; 
 And under waning moon, through vapours pale, 
 Along the shore of Man we run before the gale. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Romantic isle! cloud-bonneted, espied 
 Obscurely in the dim solstitial night. 
 We pass thee, nor survey the wealth and pride 
 Of Douglas, nor the battlemented might 
 Of Peel ; while urged by paddle, wind, and tide. 
 We speed to Scotland ere return of light. 
 Yet, spite of haste, one tributary strain 
 Departed worth demands, nor shall demand in vain.
 
 TO INVERARY. 149 
 
 ISLE OF MAN. 
 
 Hail to the mitre and the pastoral rod, 
 Hail to the saint whose pilgrimage serene 
 Was not on earth, hut earth and heaven between, 
 Hail every spot where once the prelate trod. 
 
 The friend of men, and the beloved of God ! 
 Still is the printing of his footsteps seen 
 On the bare mountain, or the lowland green. 
 And still affection lingers o'er the sod 
 
 That marks his grave. Even war at Wilson's* name 
 Relented, and the hallowed coast forbore : 
 And while he preached, and taught, and toiled to 
 save. 
 
 The scoffer prayed, and barbarism grew tame ; 
 For resc'ued souls good ang'els blessing' gave. 
 And back to heaven the joyful tidinj^s bore. 
 
 * Cardinal Fleury had such a veneration for Bishop Wilson, 
 that he obtained an order from the court of France, that no French 
 privateer should ravage tlie Isle of 3Ian.
 
 150 
 
 TO INVERARY. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Too soon, alas ! the hurricane and shower 
 Recal imagination's airy flight 
 Back from the radiance of celestial bower. 
 The Sabbath of departed saints in light. 
 To cares of earth, to the protracted hour 
 Of darkness ; to the wet and weary flight 
 Of voyagers that watch compulsive keep, 
 All squeamishness, all cold, incapable of sleep. 
 
 XXIII, 
 
 Why open not those eyelids of the morn 
 That set the sea and firmament on fire ? 
 Another night, of cloud and tempest born. 
 Hath closed them j and the charioteering sire 
 Of day, with halting steeds and lustre shorn. 
 Reluctant turns, defeated to retire, 
 lerna's coast tartarean shades infold. 
 And Caledonia's self we but by starts behold.
 
 TO IN VERA RY. I'^l 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Look up, where like a demon of the blast. 
 Enthroned upon the tumult of the main. 
 The mantle of his gloom around him cast. 
 And on his brow the thunder and the rain. 
 The crag of Ailsa, in dimension vast. 
 Rears from the' Atlantic wave his dark disdain. 
 And, bastion-like, when winds and waters wage 
 Inexorable warfare, breasts and foils their rage. 
 
 CRAG OF AILSA. ■.. 
 
 Lone, inaccessible, forbidden steep, \, 
 Conqueror of storms and centuries art thou. 
 Implanting thy foundation in the deep. 
 
 And hiding in the cloud thy furrowed brow. 
 What feathered myriads round thee wheel their 
 
 flight. 
 And to the thunder of tlic waves below
 
 '^^ TO INVERARY. 
 
 In hoarse defiance scream. The winter's night, 
 The summer's noontide, are alike to thee. 
 Wreck of the deluge, ocean's eremite. 
 
 Majestic symbol of eternity ; 
 
 For what are time or earthquake, what the power 
 Of howling tempest, or beleaguering sea ? 
 
 Thy date and place are from creation's hour 
 
 Till heaven dissolve, and flames the globe devour. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 But fancy cannot all day long be fed 
 Even on the' ambrosia of poetic lore : 
 Cold is the wind, uneasy is the tread. 
 While the vexed vessel pitches more and more ; 
 The plank hard pillow for an aching head. 
 And rough the lullaby of ocean's roar : 
 But worse than all the cabin's deadly drench 
 Of gin and whiskey, blent with pestilential stench
 
 TO INVERARY. 153 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Of fell cigar, fit harbinger and brother 
 Of boozing, brawling, guilt and gallows-tree. 
 Foul antidote to filth, foul fraud to smother 
 Worse odour than its own, if worse can be. 
 What dotage, thus to poison one another 
 AVith fumes that brutalize the hour of glee. 
 Sully the bloom of youth, pollute the breath, 
 And like a mummy vile embalm us before death. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 While thus 1 ruminate, we sweep along 
 Amid the music of the sea-gull's scream, 
 The whirlwind, and the hoarse resounding song 
 Of ocean ; vocal all to one great theme. 
 Magnificate : cry aloud, bright throng 
 Of angels; cry aloud to the Supreme: 
 Magnificate to the Power divine ' 
 That framed creation's orb, and gave the stars to 
 shine.
 
 154 TO INVERARY. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Cantire is past, and Arran's craggy pride. 
 And milder Bute, and Greenock's mart renowned ; 
 And Helensburg'h, that woos the swelling tide, 
 And many a mountain majesty around. 
 But haze and vapour every charm of Clyde 
 Sequester in obscurity profound ; 
 Till under opening skies and warmth serene, 
 Dun-Britton's rock-perched towers in happy hour are 
 seen. 
 
 DUNBRITTON. 
 
 What pride of arms, Balclutha, once was thine ; 
 
 What feast of shells, what harping in the hall ! 
 
 And, ah ! what change when Egbert from the Tyne 
 
 Led war and famine to begird thy wall. 
 But why the chronicle of woe recal. 
 
 The dark memorial of a fate malign; 
 
 Or why let fantasies of night appal 
 
 Thy day serene ? A destiny benign
 
 TO TNVERARY. 155 
 
 At length hath given thee sovereign to preside 
 O'er hill and flood ; be guardian of the w ay 
 To Leven and Ben-Lomond, and unfold 
 
 The' arcana of commercial art and pride, 
 Bidding the caldron boil, the furnace play, 
 And alchemy transmute thy glass to gold. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Mark, how Kilpatrick in recesses green 
 Lurks, like a maiden coy, to shun the day. 
 And nought but solitude and rest are seen 
 Around : the grove, the mead, the turret gray. 
 Yet in this nook of peacefulness hath been 
 Erewhile, affrightment, tumult, and afiVay : 
 What time (as legends tell) mid wild uproar 
 Asmodeus * from his flock the faithful shepherd bore. 
 
 * This curious legend was communicated to me .' iily 3d, 1829, 
 on board the Steam-Boat from Greenock to Glasgow, by a fellow 
 passenger, wliose kindness (as also that of the I'rincipal of Glasgow- 
 University) I am happy to acknowledge.
 
 156 TO INVERARY. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 TiOng had he witnessed with no friendly eye. 
 Long- had he listened with no friendly ear. 
 How Patrick taught and guided to the sky 
 Souls else enslaved to hell. " Shall my career' 
 Be thus arrested;" (was the demon's cry) 
 " Shall upstart monk dislodge me from my sphere ? 
 No : vengeance shall transport him over sea. 
 Where Erin's bog and rock his audience sole shall 
 be." 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 With that he caught him at the peep of dawn. 
 When every eye — he hoped — was closed in sleep: 
 He griped him, as an eagle gripes a fawn. 
 Leaving the solitary dam to weep ; 
 He clutched his quarry on the kirk-yard lawn. 
 Frock, missal, cord, and rosary at a sweep. 
 Pounced on his prey, and dreamed not of the' 
 event. 
 His own base felony his own worst punishment.
 
 TO TNVKRARY. 157 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 In haste from Caledonia's realm he fled, — 
 Fulfilling, though he knew not, the command 
 Divine — and of lerne's Church the head 
 In safety left on the predestined strand. 
 And was the self-deluded tool to spread 
 The day-spring from on high o'er distant land. 
 So Moab's })rince, invoking curses, found 
 Israel with added power, redoubled blessing crowned. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Meantime, the' alarm is up: from moor, from glen 
 In rage and wonder, in aftright and woe, 
 Bounding o'er mead, and floundering through the 
 
 fen, 
 They gaze, they shriek, they hurry to and fro, 
 Wrench uj) a craggy mountain (men were men 
 When this was done) and hurl it at the foe ; 
 Which, had it fallen aright, till day of doom 
 Had held him underneath in prison of the tomb.
 
 158 TO INVERARY. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Sorely it battered him and scared him sore ; 
 He howled, he quivered, as the vengeful rock 
 Bedded itself in Glotta's trembling shore 
 Within a finger's breadth his tail to dock. 
 It fell ; dyed sable with Plutonian gore : 
 Groaning it fell ; and, cloven by the shock. 
 With double head beside Dunbritton stands. 
 Memorial of that chase, those superhuman hands. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Slower and slower still — oft touching ground — 
 We struggle now against the downward tide. 
 Oft grieving, when some church-bell's sullen sound 
 Tells how the hours unprofitably glide. 
 At length the Bromielaw's far-stretching mound 
 Where commerce loads the wave from side to side. 
 We mount, and well-advised the tumult shun. 
 And to ablution, food, and tranquil comfort run.
 
 TO INVERARY. 159 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 But O for adamantine lungs to tell 
 What crowd, what clangor through the city sweep ; 
 Beau, soldier, 'prentice, artizan and belle. 
 Carts, curricles, and coaches, heap on heap, 
 Loud as the wind and wave together mell 
 In frith of Pentland or Atlantic deep : 
 Clyde in amazement listens to the roar. 
 And hurries on, to 'scape the chaos of the shore. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Leaving behind the polyphonic blast 
 Of turmoil, to the temple we repair 
 That stands aloof, with hoar of age o'ercast. 
 Rearing its pointed arches to declare 
 The toil and art of generations past. 
 And bid us think upon the house of prayer, 
 Examine well the lieart, and from within 
 Expel the gauds, the lures, the blandishments of sin.
 
 160 TO iN\ p:rary. 
 
 GLASGOW CATHEDRAL. 
 
 Fane of Saint Mungo ! peace be on thy brow. 
 With majesty and saint-like beauty crowned : 
 Silent and unadorned what need hast thou 
 
 Of shrine or image, pomp or choral sound ? 
 Enough for thee that faith and holy vow 
 Of charity with visions of delight 
 
 Illuminate the consecrated ground. 
 And bear the' emancipated soul away 
 To worlds within the veil, where depth and height 
 
 Are lost amid the' abyss of endless day; 
 
 Where saint and seraph, in communion bright. 
 Of jubilate pour the' immortal lay. 
 
 And from the throne beyond the mystic Seven 
 
 The beatific blaze of glory rolls through heaven.
 
 TO INVERARY. IGI 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 And now, if food for meditation more 
 Be wanting- yet, into the Crypt descend, 
 Where stone aloud to stone repeats the lore 
 How earth's parade and earth itself must end. 
 Advance: the monumental cave explore, 
 Thy thought on righteousness and judgment bend; 
 And dally not with danger; nor delay 
 Thy monitor, to some remote convenient day. 
 
 CRYPT OF GLASGOW CATHEDRAfi. 
 
 Here, here ! stern preacher, take tliy stand ; for here 
 
 Each vault a testimony gives that all 
 
 Is vanity ; and aidant to thy call 
 
 Resounds the voice of death. The tombs are near, 
 But he is nearer still : the stars that fall 
 
 Are types of man ; the bloom of vernal year 
 
 M
 
 162 TO INVERARY. 
 
 His emblem : his delights are mixed with gall, 
 His glories in a moment disappear 
 
 For ever : such the warning of the grave. 
 Such eloquence in the sepulchral gloom ; 
 While from the dust our fathers with a groan 
 
 Adjure us to repent, amend, atone; 
 
 Lest mindless of the hand that smites to save 
 We die ; and perish in the fires of doom. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Light as the startled antelope upsprings. 
 We rise the following morn from bed of down. 
 And while in distance and faint murmurings 
 The wealth,* the smoke, the bustle of the town 
 Recede, we haste on expectation's wings 
 Beside yon amplitudes of wood that crown 
 Dunbucks, and through Dunbriton, to the bay 
 Where Lomond's affluent deeps to Leven tribute pay. 
 * Fumum, et opes, strepitumque Romae.
 
 JO INVERARY. lOS 
 
 LOCH-LOMOND. 
 
 O for a calm of Eden, that the lake 
 
 Might sleep in mirrored majesty around, 
 And image back the clouds and blue profound. 
 But who can lull the winds ? — their terrors wake ; 
 
 Their voice is lifted up ; the mountains shake. 
 The billows rise, and whitening roll, with sound 
 That deafens converse ; while the rocks rebound 
 Their melancholy roar. But He who spake 
 
 The word, and it was done ; can overawe 
 
 The wave, the whirlwind, and the wilder storm 
 Of j^assion in the heart : so when of old 
 
 Darkness was on the deep, and without form 
 And void was embryon earth, the Spirit saw. 
 And moving on the waters, hushed them and con- 
 trolled. 
 
 M 2
 
 J 64 TO INVERARY 
 
 XL. 
 
 What congregated seas of vapoury shade 
 Hang on the mountains, darken every vale, 
 While crag and meadow, forest and cascade 
 Swim by in visionary glimpses pale. 
 Luss, Tarbet, and the Mull of Inversnaid 
 Are left behind ; and see Glenfalloch's dale 
 Its wildly-solemn loveliness unfold : 
 The lake's sequestered head, the caverned rock behold. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Where erst in Caledonia's evil day, 
 A persecuted remnant poured the prayer. 
 And scarcely dared to let devotion's lay 
 Steal on the silence of the desert air. 
 Yet in that cell of mourning and dismay 
 Was light from heaven ; Jehovah's self was there ! 
 Messiah's presence beamed upon the shrine, 
 And there the Paraclete imbreathed repose divine.
 
 lO INVERARY. 165 
 
 XLII. 
 
 In peril and in want, in waste and fen. 
 Seer and Apostle have been driven to roam, 
 Estranged and hunted from resort of men. 
 From friends, from ease, from safety, and from 
 
 home ; 
 Fed by the ravens, housed in cave or den, 
 Shipwrecked, and struggling with the salt-sea foam. 
 And doomed in painful pilgrimage to go 
 To the sojourn of death, along the vale of woe. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 But as from polished leaves the drops of rain 
 Roll diamond-like, with not a track behind. 
 So danger and adversity and pain 
 Glide harmless from the saint and martyr's mind. 
 A voice they hear, unheard by the profane, 
 A vision see to which the world is blind ; 
 And though in sight of men they seem to die. 
 Yet theirs the kingdom is, theirs immortality.
 
 166 TO INVERARY. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Farewel, Glenfalloch ! brief is our sojourn ; 
 Too brief; and often we revert our eye, 
 While from high meditation and the bourne 
 Of things invisible, with many a sigh 
 To thought and care corporeal we return. 
 Of route, conveyances, and due supply; 
 Where Tarbet, offering opportune retreat. 
 Administers repose, and change of vesture meet. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 From Tarbet through the wooded dingle bend 
 Your steps, co-mates and partners of my way ; 
 To where the waters of Loch-Long extend 
 Their utmost curve : speed next beyond the bay 
 Of Arroquhar, till lengthening dusk descend 
 From yonder summit, and eclipse the day. 
 Palled in Ben- Arthur's awful shade, we go 
 From drear to drearier still, and wind into Glencroe.
 
 TO INVERARY. 167 
 
 GLENCROE. 
 
 Not here, amid the solitude and gloom, 
 The desolation and the storm — not here 
 The heart finds leisure, or indulges room 
 To fantasies that flutter in the sphere 
 
 Of mirth : the wind, the mountain be our seer; 
 And to their prophecy of death and doom 
 Let conscience make reply. Attend, give ear. 
 Pilgrims of earth: bethink you of the tomb, 
 
 And that hereafter when before the throne 
 Adam and all his progeny shall stand. 
 The heavens dissolve, the world be wrapt in flame. 
 
 All hearts be open, all desires be known. 
 
 Death be subdued, time ended ; while the band 
 Of saints and seraphim adore Jehovah's name.
 
 168 TO INVEKARY. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 How deep a furrow hath the hand supreme 
 Ploughed here among the moorlands; where the 
 
 sigh 
 Of winds, the dash of waters, and the scream 
 Of eagles wheeling on the troubled sky. 
 Give deeper awe to silence ; while we dream 
 Of death, and judgment, and eternity; 
 And half forget we live : and look around 
 To see the Judge descend, and hear the trumpet sound. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Hither from hope's delusion, passion's thrall. 
 Let the worn votary of the world retire ; 
 Here, here, if evei*, let oblivion fall 
 On power and pomp, ambition and desire: 
 Here let contrition own religion's call. 
 And the last unregenerate wish expire. 
 Then shall the dry bones live, and virtue's ray 
 Light up our ashes cold in blaze of endless day.
 
 TO INVERARY. 169 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Well said the Preacher, " Better to frequent 
 The house of mourning, than the house of mirth." 
 For never yet was laughter heaven-ward bent. 
 Nor dance and revel gave devotion birth : 
 The wassail and the wine-cup may content 
 The voluntary servitors of earth. 
 But wisdom and her chosen hear the sound 
 Of seraph harp, and walk on consecrated ground. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 In deep abstraction we approach the shrine 
 Of solitude that pencils o'er the day 
 With gloom ; for contemplation gives the sign. 
 And feelingly reminds us of decay. 
 While, scant of breath, with aching knee, and spine 
 Incurved, we slowly labour up the way 
 To where the monitory marble stands. 
 And to repose invites, and gratitude commands.
 
 170 TO TNVERARY 
 
 REST AND BE THANKFUL.* 
 
 Rest, and be thankful ! Stone, thou counsellest well. 
 Thanks be for every boon of heaven, so far 
 Surpassing thought. Jehovah's glory tell. 
 
 Ye planetary fires, and every star 
 
 That culminates amid the vast of night, 
 Or harbingers the morn's refulgent car. 
 
 Let thunder and the sea resound his might. 
 Let wind and tempest in accordance roar ; 
 Praise Him above, ye seraphim of light, 
 
 And all ye habitants of earth, adore ! 
 
 Thanks for each solace of life's weary way. 
 Thanks for the long repose when life is oe'r. 
 
 Thanks for the call from monumental clay. 
 
 Eternal peace to find, eternal homage pay. 
 
 * A stone, so insciibed, at the top of the long ascent in Glencroe.
 
 TO INVERARY. 171 
 
 L. 
 
 The car resumed, our charioteer in thunder 
 Speeds by Loch-Restal downward ; slyly taunting 
 Our doubts and fears : the very rocks asunder 
 He rives, his coursers and his prowess vaunting, 
 Deaf to our hints, exulting in our wonder, 
 Cheering, careering, without mercy daunting 
 The timid Southrons. To Cairndow we came 
 Safe, but with tingling ears, and half-disjointed frame. 
 
 LI. 
 
 The mantle of gray evening on the tide 
 Was gently falling, when we left our seat 
 Beside Loch-Fyne, to clamber up the side 
 Of brigantine, whose vapour-trundled feet 
 Row from Cairndow each day lier dingy pride 
 To Inveraray. Bolder than discreet 
 Such voyage was, if true be every tale 
 How fire, explosion, wreck, the sons of steam assail.
 
 172 TO INVERARY. 
 
 LII. 
 
 Look toward Glenkinglas : in their clouds the dead 
 Ride o'er those hills of terror and of storm : 
 While sad and solemn on our right are spread 
 The sylvan eminence, the drooping form 
 Of time-worn fortalice. A chastening awe 
 Shoots through the heart: man feels himself a 
 
 worm. 
 Knows himself fallen, and bends the knee to claim 
 Redemption's pledge, and bless the sole redeeming 
 Name. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 See Inveraray gradual into sight 
 Bud fortli ; the fairest floweret of the land : 
 See close beside the Loch her mansions white 
 Like ivory chess-men marshalled on the strand. 
 To swim, deep water and hold shore invite ; 
 To row or sail, the wonders that expand 
 On every side ; the mountain and the bower, 
 And Duniquaich in pomp of forest, rock, and tower.
 
 TO INVERARY. . 17.'} 
 
 LIV. 
 
 What luxury, what health, on crag or lawn 
 To drink the sweetness of the matin breeze, 
 And mark the stately hart or timid fawn 
 Bound through the fern, and plunge among the 
 
 trees. 
 Nor idly let us watch tlie saffron dawn. 
 Nor saunter, yawn, and stretch in sluggish ease ; 
 But ponder, in Glen-shiray's green recess. 
 The documents of truth, the ways of happiness. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Each charm of mead and wood-invested steep. 
 Umbrageous grove, and limpid lake is thine. 
 Glen of the silent stream ! and tranquil sleep 
 Thy waves ; like passion in our life's decline. 
 O better than all wealth, serene to creep 
 Through Baca's vale, and dying give the sign 
 Of faith, and jubilant uj)]ift the cry, 
 " O deatl), where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy 
 victory P"
 
 174 TO TNVERARY. 
 
 INVERARAY. 
 
 Could place give happiness, Elysium here 
 Were all before us : but the primal foe 
 Of old, envenomed the sublunar sphere ; 
 And all creation labours in the throe 
 
 Of sorrow's birth : yet patient undergo 
 Thy cross, nor think the destiny severe 
 Of him who, though he drain the cup of woe, 
 Escapes the cup of wrath. The foliage sere 
 
 May perish, yet the vine full cluster yield 
 Of immortality : the guardian cloud 
 Along life's wilderness moves on by day 
 
 In gloom ; its inward fire awhile concealed : 
 But night shall dissipate the vapoury shroud. 
 And blaze of glory gild death's uncouth way.
 
 TO INVERARY. 17o 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Groves, alleys, copses, avenues invite 
 To quench in coolness the meridian beam. 
 We sink into their gloominess ; where night 
 Usurps the noontide : there in vision gleam 
 The scenes of youth ; and there of home's delight; 
 Of hours gone by, and absent friends we dream — 
 While ruminate the cattle ; while in glee 
 The squirrel,* witli arched tail, cracks nuts on every 
 tree. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 But why thus linger we, thus fondly heave 
 The parting sigh of a regretful mind ? 
 Think what is man. Years gift him, years bereave ; 
 Necessity comjiels him, duties bind : 
 We plant, we toil, shift purpose, weave, unweave. 
 We travel, we arrive, we leave behind ; 
 Change following change: the planets from on high 
 Shall fall ; the sun, the moon, the constellations die. 
 
 • And many squirrels that ysate 
 
 High on the trees, and nuts ate. — Chavckh.
 
 RESURGAM. 
 
 Ocean is ebbing from the shore 
 With lessening- surges, fainter roar, 
 
 And owns the curbing hand: 
 He owns the hand, obeys the hour. 
 And leaves — sole relic of his power — 
 
 The sea-weed on the strand. 
 
 The sun perforce rides down the steep 
 Of western heaven into the deep, 
 
 And abdicates the sky : 
 Dim are the mountain, lake and glade. 
 The clouds with all their glories fade. 
 
 And darkness reigns on high. 
 
 The moon is doomed to droop and wane. 
 Dragged by an adamantine chain 
 
 To interlunar cave : 
 With orb impaired, and radiance shorn. 
 And more and more diminished horn. 
 
 She sinks into her grave.
 
 RESURGAM. 177 
 
 Tliough in the lustihood of spring- 
 The floweret bud, the linnet sing. 
 
 And ether smile serene ; 
 Yet soon the joyaunce of the year 
 Degenerates into cold and sere. 
 
 And winter shuts the scene. 
 
 Though youth have bloom, and manhood strengtii, 
 And though they ripen into length 
 
 Of years, and wisdom's lore ; 
 Yet like a garland they consume. 
 They melt, they vanish into fume. 
 
 And are beheld no more. 
 
 But ocean shall again demand 
 His domination o'er the land. 
 
 Again triumphant roll ; 
 And with indomitable sway 
 Drive back the river, sweep the bay. 
 
 Disdainful of control. 
 
 N
 
 178 RESURGAM 
 
 Departed day shall be new born, 
 And in the chariot of the morn 
 
 The sun shall reascend 
 The firmament, dispel the night, 
 And seven-fold harmonies of light 
 
 In one fierce glory blend. 
 
 Is night with double night o'erlaid ? 
 Wait but a moment, and the shade 
 
 Seems never to have been : 
 The moon revisits her domain. 
 And 'twixt the clouds and starry train 
 
 Walks on, apparent queen. 
 
 Winter, with all thy storms, begone ; 
 Let verdure, warmth, and day come on 
 
 From equinoctial line ; 
 While nightingale and wood-lark sing 
 To welcome the return of spring 
 
 With melody divine.
 
 RESURGAM. 179 
 
 7VII these from sepulture revive. 
 And turn, and are again alive 
 
 At their Creator's call. 
 But where is man ? — For ever fled. 
 Where are our fathers ?— With the dead 
 
 And we must follow all. 
 
 But though we yield the mortal frame 
 To sickness, weapon, flood or flame, 
 
 And with the worm sojourn ; 
 Yet in our ashes shall a spark 
 Amid the secret and the dark 
 
 Imperishably burn. 
 
 When ruin mingles night and day. 
 And stars and sunshine flxde away 
 
 In dissolution's gloom ; 
 Immortal man shall then appear 
 Before the judgment-seat, to hear 
 
 The trial and the doom. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 RESURGAM. 
 
 New earth, new heaven shall then arise. 
 When pole and tropic, seas and skies. 
 
 Are vanished as a dream; 
 And sphered in peace without alloy 
 The just inherit endless joy 
 
 Before the dread Supreme. 
 
 END OF CANTO L
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED.
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED. 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 No resting-place on earth is for the sole 
 Of mortal feet j nor pleasure can disguise 
 Nor art delay our progress to the goal 
 Where ends the race of being. Timely wise. 
 Improve each talent, seize the' accorded dole 
 Of time ; make serviceable, ere it flies, 
 Occasion ; and set forward while the day 
 Yet shines ; nor let an hour pass unredeemed away.
 
 ^84 ' TO SKYE 
 
 II. 
 
 Look on the blackening ant-hill, all alive 
 With laboui-'s indefatigable train ; 
 Look how the busy tenants of the hive 
 Press nectar from each floweret of the plain ; 
 Look on the multitude that toil and strive. 
 Encircling sea and land for power or gain : 
 Not from the fallow-field we harvest reap, 
 Nor fortune can be won by folded arms and sleep. 
 
 III. 
 
 Even in the tourist's pleasureable scheme 
 Must wakefulness and perseverance blend : 
 Else all is nothing but an empty dream, 
 A goodly passage leading to no end. 
 Will antiquary's lore or poet's theme 
 To loitering and to sloth their treasures lend P 
 No : true the maxim is, the reasoning sound. 
 That where no search is made, there nothing can bo 
 found.
 
 AND INVERNESS, 185 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thus tutored, we the mansion of Argyle 
 Embosomed in the woods wide-spreading round 
 Forsake, and traverse Aray's rude defile 
 (Than which what lovelier spot on earth is found ?) 
 Gazing and lingering' oft with pensive smile. 
 Oft listening to the breeze, the stream, the sound 
 Of falling leaves, mementos of decay, . 
 Emblems how man and all his vauntings pass away. 
 
 What are our projects, what our toil and trouble. 
 What all that nature, all that art can liring? 
 Power is a vapour, glory is a bubble. 
 Wealth hath a canker, pleasure hath a sting, 
 Wind scatters chaff, and fire devours the stubble, 
 And swifter still, the never-wearied wingr 
 Of time sweeps all : the monarch and the groom 
 Alike are born, alike descend into the tomb !
 
 186 TO SKYE 
 
 VI. 
 
 The' acclivity surmounted, see Loch-Awe 
 Far underneath us, girded with a chain 
 Of mountains inaccessible, withdraw 
 Like a lone hermit from the world. The brain 
 Is filled with shapes that own not reason's law ; 
 And tales of superstition, elsewhere vain. 
 Take form and substance here, where all around 
 Beauty and horror hold joint rule o'er faery ground. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Not always, if tradition rightly spell. 
 Yon winding amplitudes of lake were seen 
 To skirt the mountain and o'erfloat the dell; 
 But groves were there, and copse and lawn between. 
 Garden and orchard, tilth and arable ; 
 And cattle numberless illumed the green : 
 Prompt were the crops to yield, the flocks to breed. 
 Health revelled on the hills, and plenty in the mead.
 
 AM) INVERNESS, 1^7 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Here dwelt the huntress Bera, child of sage 
 Griannan : never might disease or time 
 Approach to wither her ; from age to age 
 So bright she walked in youth and beauty's prime; 
 Her daily sport, the sylvan war to wage ; 
 Her daily task, Ben-Cruachan's height to climb, 
 And heedfully the perilous fountain tend, 
 Whereon the destinies of all her race depend. 
 
 IX. 
 
 For underneath, in simulated sleep. 
 Within the vastness of the mountain's womb, 
 Innumerable oceans, heap on heap. 
 In bridled fury tenanted the gloom ; 
 And Bera's charge it was to curb the deep. 
 Her ministry alone could check the doom ; 
 And on her watch if once oblivion fall. 
 Fame, fortune, hope are lost, and ruin swallows all.
 
 188 TO SKYE 
 
 X. 
 
 A mighty rock, that nightly covered o'er 
 The mouth of that unfathomable spring. 
 She must remove, ere over sea and shore 
 The sun his early beam began to fling ; 
 For on that rock engraven was the lore 
 Of thaumaturgic power and spectre-king. 
 And nought the subterranean surge might calm. 
 Save the soft unctuous touch of day's ambrosial balm. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Tliat rock, ere yet the chariot of the sun 
 Was heard to hiss amid the western main. 
 Ere yet the shadows of the twilight dun 
 Ascended to the mountain from the plain. 
 Ere yet the night's phantasmas had begun 
 Their deeds of misadventure and of bane. 
 Must be replaced above the gulf profound, 
 Or woe to Bera, woe to her dominion round.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 189 
 
 XII. 
 
 Each morning like a cloud she might be seen 
 Gliding on high while yet the day was pale. 
 At noon, her wolf-hounds on Dalmally's green 
 Were heard, or chiding in Glenorchy's vale ; 
 And when gray evening umbered the terrene, 
 Her voice of harmony was in the gale. 
 While o'er the ridges of Ben-Cruachan rolled 
 Her car of crimson light and firmamental gold. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Centuries rolled on, and Bera still was young. 
 And all in peacefulness around her lay ; 
 Her praise each youth and village maiden sung. 
 Chieftain and patriarch blest her gentle sway, 
 The desolation still suspended hung. 
 And terror like a dream had past away : 
 So ^tna slumbers long, ere he o'erwhelm 
 Catania's saint-lined wall, and waste Sicilia's realm.
 
 190 TO SKYE 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Alas ! how oft unwariness will play 
 
 On danger's brink : o'erheated in the chase. 
 
 The priestess of the spring, one fatal day. 
 
 Forgot the wonted signal to replace 
 
 The talisman. The sun's reluctant ray 
 
 Prophetic, yet forbidden to retrace 
 
 His path, went down; night veiled Ben-Cruachan's 
 
 steep. 
 Yet still the warder's eye was curtained o'er with 
 
 sleep, 
 
 XV. 
 
 Then broke confusion forth : the dread profound 
 Disgorged its oceans : down the mountain side 
 They scooped their deluge course with hideous 
 
 sound. 
 And over them huge columns hovered wide 
 Of spray and foam : the solitudes around 
 Shook to the storm and thunder of the tide ; 
 Yet Bera still lay dreamless in repose. 
 Forgetful of her race, unconscious of their woes.
 
 AND TX VERA' ESS, 191 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Three days she slept : then, as a glimmering red 
 Rekindled ether, and foreran the sun. 
 Slow she awakened, slowly raised her head. 
 And noting- in alarm the day begun, 
 Her steps to the mysterious fountain sped. 
 With haste how vain ! lier ministry was done : 
 All there was void and silent ; all the plain 
 A monument of doom, a wide-sepulcliring main. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 She shrieked : wild Cona sliuddered at tlie cry, 
 Ben-Nevis echoed back tlie dismal sound, 
 Ben-Cruaclian tottered from his peak on higli 
 Down to his base and uttermost profound. 
 She gazed on earth, she gazed upon the sky, 
 Despairing gazed in agony around. 
 And to her fathers in their halls of litiht. 
 Cloud-borne from netlier earth her s])irit took its 
 flight.
 
 192 TO SKYE 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 But still when equinoctial tempests blow, 
 Or winter's hurricanes the welkin rend. 
 Her penance is to stand upon the brow. 
 And see the cataracts to the vale descend ; 
 Then her lamentings fill the vale below. 
 Her visionary form is seen to bend 
 O'er many a cliff, and with vain effort strive 
 To check the gushing fount, the torrent back to drive. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Believe who list : ourselves are come the while 
 
 To where Dalmally nestles in retreat 
 
 Mid precipice, and forest and defile. 
 
 And lake and stream that wash Ben-Cruachan's 
 
 feet. 
 Mountain and dale alternate frown and smile. 
 Beauty and grandeur in embraces meet. 
 And we are wandering on the' Elysian shore ; 
 Or dream ; and from that dream would fain awake no 
 
 more.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 193 
 
 DALMALI.Y. 
 
 In solitude like this might he who sung- 
 The circle of the seasons, to a strain 
 Of higher mood have soared, and rent in twain 
 The covering o'er the world of sjiirits flung, 
 
 Giving to view the visitants that hung ' 
 
 O'er the blind bard of Albion, when the fane 
 Of the third heaven was pictured on his brain. 
 And in his ear the harp of angels rung. 
 
 Might we behold — but once behold— that light, 
 Or feed upon that harmony divine. 
 Or in those paradises make sojourn. 
 
 Thenceforward how could we terrestrial sight 
 Endure, or to terrestrial sounds incline. 
 Or to the sin-polluted world return !
 
 i94 TO SKYE 
 
 XX. 
 
 Onward we journey, underneath the brow 
 Of mountains rang'ed in jealous guard along 
 The valley's flank : all loveliness below, 
 All majesty above. Thought's busy throng 
 Now melting into pleasure, chastened now 
 By wondering awe, break forth into the song 
 Of thankfulness and praise. Fit scene and hour 
 To meditate on heaven, and wait the coming power 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Of inspiration, courted oft in grove, 
 Near rush of waterfalls, or in the grot 
 Egerian called. Sequestered from the drove 
 Of worldlings, oft in hermitage or cot 
 Hath Wisdom dwelt, with not a wish to rove 
 Beyond the precincts of her lonely lot. 
 Or tempt the peril of contagion's breath, 
 Where vice and folly steam an atmosphere of death.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 195 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Taynuilt, Loch-Etive, Connal, left behind. 
 
 To sadder dusk the hues of evening fade, 
 
 Where gloomed the mountain, where the water 
 
 shined. 
 Remote and near, one undistinguished shade, 
 As 'twixt the meadow and the rock we wind 
 To where, in sleep forgetting toil and trade, 
 Oban, obscurely seen, in misty light, 
 I-ike tropic fir^-fly gleams upon the front of night. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The ring, the crosier, dalmatic and pall, 
 No more claim reverence here, or image sway ; 
 No bell from monastery, tower or hall. 
 Tolls now to mass, or welcomes holiday. 
 No more the mitred Abbot sits in stall. 
 Nor choirs, prevenient of the matin ray, 
 Gregorian or Ambrosian chant prolong. 
 Till Morven, Mull, Argyle, reverberate the song. 
 
 o 2
 
 ,196 TO SKYE 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 No barons now, no prelates in their pride, 
 Dunolly fence, or cloister up Lismore. 
 High swelled their fortune once.; but now the tide 
 Is ebbing, and their sea forsakes the shore. 
 The tyrant's ruin, superstition's fall, 
 Bid us the hand of Providence adore. 
 And spurn the base insensate herd that deem 
 Chance, fate, vicissitude, our arbiters supreme. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The day departing, goes but to return ; 
 The year, in winter dead, revives in spring ; 
 And transient though the date of life's sojourn, 
 Yet resurrection from the grave shall bring 
 Rapture and triumph that for ever burn 
 Before the mount and vision of the King, 
 Who throned upon the circle of the skies. 
 Yet deigns to turn on earth his all-pervading eyes.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 197 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Watching the seeds of virtue, which his hand 
 
 Inipkxnted in adversity's dry ground, 
 
 With not a rock to shade the weary hind, 
 
 Nor rain, nor dew, nor rivulet's cheering sound : 
 
 Yet touclied by secret influence they expand 
 
 Their blossom and their fruit; breathe fragrance 
 
 round. 
 And grafted on the' authentic vine, unfold 
 The leaves of paradise, and grapes of living gold. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Even He, the Highest, Holiest, walked in pain 
 The vale of tears, the Mount of Calvary trod. 
 Ere he on high ascended ; thence again 
 To come in majesty, our .fudge and God. 
 And shall the sinner question or complain 
 Of sorrow, and rebel against the rod ? 
 Hear, thou that sleepest on the bed of night 
 And death; awake, arise; and Christ shall give thee 
 light!
 
 198 TO SKYE 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Not silver, gems, nor gold the' Apostle gave ; 
 But to the crippled limbs their long-lost power; 
 Nor is it wealth the sons of wisdom crave. 
 Nor is it wealth that heaven vouchsafes to shower. 
 For who would be the puppet and the slave 
 Of vanities that perish in an hour. 
 When treasures may be found that ne'er decay. 
 And kingdoms may be won, whose date is endless day P 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Away from Oban ; time is on the wing, 
 The winds and waters whisper to be gone ; 
 When did a lovelier morn from ocean spring. 
 When hath the beam of noon more brightly shone! 
 We ruminate or talk, pipe, dance, or sing. 
 Weigh anchor, sail, bring to, again sail on. 
 By regions which a necromancer's wand 
 From desert hath transformed to realms of faery land.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 199 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Listen not to the sprites that j^ibe or wail 
 While evening shades make pensive the serene 
 Of loneliness ; nor linger near the dale 
 Whose harp is wakened by a hand unseen 
 In praise of Bragela ; nor where the gale 
 Bears from Artornish * sounds of pride and spleen, 
 And rage and combat in the castle's hall. 
 Marring the bridal song, and mirth of festival ; 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 But gliding on to Tobermorie, close 
 In rest and sleep the wandering and the toil 
 Of day ; if e'er oblivion or repose 
 Be found amid the' impatience and turmoil 
 Of fancy, crying out what shame to doze 
 Dull as tlie weed of TiCthe, wlien the coil 
 Of mariners, the surges, and the breeze 
 Invite us to the sea-encircled Hebrides. 
 
 * Artornish, on lier frowning steep 
 
 'Twixt cloud and ocean Ining. — Lord of the Men.
 
 200 TO SKYE 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Night, abdicate thine empire; let the Sound 
 Of Mull be renovated in the ray 
 Of morn, while for lona's hallowed ground 
 And StafFa, we renew our watery way. 
 Hail to the vast circumference around 
 Of ocean ! hail, Tresharnish Isles ! where play 
 The billows now in peace, anon to roar 
 Tn tempest, and well-nigh ingulf the crag-bound 
 shore. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 What radiance! what serene! how high! how wide 
 The hemisphere of firmamental blue ! 
 Far off, the Paps of Jura seem to ride 
 The clouds, while kelp-fires paint with dingy hue 
 The vales of Mull, or pillow on the tide 
 Their smoky train. We man with steady crew 
 The boat, and favoured by the calm, invade 
 The cave where cormorants and goblins court the 
 shade.
 
 AND INVP:RNESS. 201 
 
 CORMORANTS' CAVE. (Staffu). 
 
 ... •<•-,. ^- >. . - ^. 
 
 Hail, Spirit of the' Atlantic ! thine the boon 
 That bears us on the tide's unruffled stream 
 Into the cave where twilight dims the noon, 
 
 While wave-reflected sun-beams faintly gleam 
 Along the dusk, and ocean-nymplis below 
 Their garlands weave. Fit haunt wherein to dream 
 
 Of Kelpies riding on the watery bow 
 
 Which the moon paints upon the midnight shower. 
 Of corpse-lights that amid tlie surges glow. 
 
 And mermaids like a cloud-wreath from their bower 
 Ascending, on the lonely shore to stray ; 
 Of sea-snake o'er the billows like a tower 
 
 Gliding erect; of night-hag, ghost and fay, 
 
 'J'hat range the deep, or in the whirlwind play.
 
 202 TO SKYE 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Far oft', lona's tower is faintly seen 
 Where erst the bells * their peal spontaneous rung 
 To greet Columba's coming ; and the sheen 
 Of lamp self-kindled on each turret hung : 
 Nave, chancel, aisle, breathed fragrance not terrene, 
 And choirs invisible the welcome sung; 
 And peace descended at the Founder's prayer; 
 The plenteousness of peace in earth, sea, fire and air. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 The fiends that long of yore from India fled 
 
 To build new empire in the Hebrid main. 
 
 And camjDment made on Arran's thunderous head, 
 
 Or domineered in Bute's well-peopled plain. 
 
 Backward recoiled, nor longer dared to spread 
 
 Among the' Ebudai their deceits profane. 
 
 So Asmodai, shorn of all his power, 
 
 Left in Ecbatana unharmed the nuptial bower. 
 
 * One mile from Hereford, on the Foxley road, are the small 
 remains of an ancient cross, which tradition says, was erected to 
 commemorate a miraculous ringing of the bells of Hereford Cathe- 
 dral, when Bishop rantilujie (A.D. 1275) came in sigiit of his 
 Church. — See Duncumb'a Hhlory of Herefordshire.
 
 AND INVERNESS, 203 
 
 lONA. 
 
 Grave of kings, cathedral pile, 
 Nurse of knowledge, holy isle, 
 Suffer me once more to tread 
 Where repose the mighty dead. 
 Priest and warrior, good and just, 
 Saint and monarch in the dust. 
 Till the day, the day of ire. 
 When the world shall sink in lire ! 
 
 As the light in cloudy shrine 
 Rested by command divine 
 Till the stars began to run 
 Around the courses of the sun; 
 So, mid barbarism and night, 
 Here was seen Columba's light, 
 Here a tabernacled ray. 
 Pledge and harbinger of day ! 
 Shone, the western world to guide 
 Tlirough the tempest and the tide. 
 Cala, Ila, Sakya, saw, 
 Anil bliuddereil with propliclic nwe ;
 
 204 TO SKYE 
 
 Conscious that dispersing gloom 
 Augured their dominion's doom ; 
 Cherubim and Seraphim 
 Listened to the Convent hymn, 
 Lent their voices to the lay, 
 And bore it to the realms of day. 
 
 Rude lona ! envy not 
 Of Hesperian clime the lot ; 
 Wild and poor and lonely shore. 
 Envy not Arabian store. 
 Spice-groves that entrance the wind. 
 Gold of Ophir, gems of Ind : 
 Say not thou art wild and rude ; 
 Wisdom haunts thy solitude : 
 Say not poor ; the gift is thine 
 Of the mystery divine : 
 Say not lonely ; on thy coast 
 Horse and chariot, fiery host. 
 Tutelary station keej) 
 'Gainst the foeman, 'gainst the deep. 
 And thou hast blessing from the throne 
 Of the Triune, the Name Unknown, 
 The Watcher and the Holy One.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 20o 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Witli altered course we from lona sail. 
 And leaving Staffa westward far, explore 
 Full many a headland, islet, loch and vale ; 
 And figured rocks, that each confronting shore 
 Of Mull and Ulva lining, nigh impale 
 The narrowed surges. Now with sevenfold roar 
 Let the prest engine toil ; for long the way 
 Ere Tobermorie soothe with sleep the toils of day. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 We land, we slumber ; but the bugle's call 
 Early next morn remands us to the deej), 
 j\nd from the massy pier's contiguous wall, 
 Impatient of tlie j)lank, on board we leap. 
 'J'he porpoises in shoals portend a squall. 
 Tumbling around, as o'er the wave we sweep, 
 And Ronin, many-headed monster, s])rouds 
 At our approach his might and majesty in clouds.
 
 206 TO SKYE 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Ill-omened was the knell on Eig that rung 
 In answer to the passing phantom's cry ; 
 Was it a Saxon * ghost, or did the clang 
 Of Highland piper mark the doomed to die ? 
 Vapour and gloom and tempest overhang 
 The heaths of Morven and the hills of Skye ; 
 And the sea whitens, and a louder sound 
 Of deep-perturbed waves Cuchullin's rocks rebound. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 And though in safety we attained the bay 
 Of Slepen, cause we found even there to rue 
 That none of us had e'er explored the way 
 To dell or cavern, none their entrance knew. 
 So long in consultation and dismay. 
 On coast untried, no landmark in our view, 
 We gazed and doubted, till a friendly hand 
 The welcome bonnet waved, and beckoned us to land, 
 
 * When Dr. Johnson took boat to visit a cavern by the seaside, 
 in the Isle of Skye, one of the boatman declared that he heard the 
 cry of an English Ghost.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 207 
 
 XL. 
 
 Archibald of Strath- A ird, if such thy name. 
 Or if Mc Allister delight thee more. 
 Forgive us, generous youth, that we proclaim 
 Thy liberal convoy, and auxiliar lore. 
 To thee the wreath of hospitable fame 
 Descends of right, which erst thy fathers wore; 
 And never, while my voice can match the string, 
 Shall gratitude be found too weak and cold to sing. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 He marked our wandering, and the signal gave. 
 While dubious we Loch-Slepen's beach surveyed 
 Alert to grant, ere we had power to crave. 
 Beyond our utmost hope he furnished aid ; 
 Our guide on land, our pilot on the sea. 
 Each doubt he solved, each preparation made. 
 And through the vestibule into the fane 
 Of spar-incrusted grot, led up our wandering train.
 
 208 TO SKYE 
 
 SPAR-CAVE. (Isle of Skye). 
 
 Heaven and the heaven of heavens, O Lord, are thine ; 
 And if to gloom and chaos we descend. 
 The mysteries of thy grace our steps attend, 
 The beams of Omnipresence round us shine. 
 
 The planets tell thy workmanship divine. 
 Day sings to day Hosanna without end. 
 Night and the stars their voice in homage blend ; 
 The waste, the deep, the cavern and the mine 
 
 Re-echo jubilate. Every power 
 
 Of nature swells the never-ceasing lay 
 That chants in ecstasy the King Supreme, 
 
 Whose glory, when the dread judicial hour 
 Bids the Creation vanish as a dream. 
 Shall fill Eternity's empyreal day.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 20l> 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Loch-Scavig- next we traverse, and beliold 
 Cuchullin's peaks of desolation lour 
 As thougli to scare our pi'ogress overbold 
 From where they round the lake's abysses tower, 
 A host of mountains in confusion rolled. 
 Scarred by the thunder, waterspout and shower, 
 Ghost-peopled precipices of dismay. 
 That bare and black, and huge and grim, make niglit 
 of day. 
 
 CORRIE-USK. * (Isle of Skye). 
 
 Was there no grave in habitable realm. 
 
 That hither we have wandered to the tomlj , 
 
 Of nature, where the mountains overwiielm 
 In pendulous horror the dread gulf of doom, 
 
 A wilderness of ruin without bound ! 
 
 Lonelier than loneliness, of sterner gloom 
 
 * For a description of this awful scene, consult the Notes to the 
 "Lord of the Isles." 
 
 P
 
 210 TO SKYE 
 
 Than tempest-laden midnight ? — Not a sound 
 Nor sight of life — the silence of despair. 
 The solitude of death, — what fiend hath frowned, 
 
 What imprecation blasted earth and air. 
 
 That never plant may spring, nor sun may shine ? 
 
 Peace, peace; infirm of faith: Jehovah's care 
 Is over all : and every where the shrine 
 Of wakeful Providence, and love divine. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Away ; ere long-continued gaze appal 
 To frenzy ; ere into the dire profound 
 The rocks and overhanging mountains fall : 
 Away; for now with wreck-portending sound 
 From strand to cliff the water-demons call. 
 The storm-birds are abroad, the waves around 
 Are curling into foam ; and such the roar 
 As when Tregagel * howls on Marazion's shore. 
 
 *' 
 
 •Tregagel is a giant, whose voice (according to the superstitions 
 of Cornwall) is heard among the rocks preceding and during a 
 storm. — See the beautiful Poem of " Ellen Gray,'" hj Rev. W. L. 
 Bowles.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 211 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Now liigli, now low, rain-l)attere(l, tempest-tost, 
 Mid evening's gloom we combat with tlie tide ; 
 In winding-sheet of mist is Canna lost. 
 And scarcely Ardnamurchan's point descried. 
 At length, Loch-Sunart past, the Sound is crost. 
 And underneath the lee of Mull we glide ; 
 Till all the labours of the day rej)Ose 
 Tn Tobermorie's calm ; and sleep our eyelids close, 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Bidding the masque of dreams once more unfold 
 The spectacles of day : again the breeze 
 Moans to the pattering rain descending cokl, 
 Again we labour on the hollow seas. 
 The cliffs and caverns of Strath-Aird behold, 
 Or on Cuchullin'.s edge with tottering' knees 
 Backward recoil, miss footing, shriek and fall ; 
 Right fain when gleam of day, and Ijuglc's note recai 
 
 I' 2
 
 212 TO SKYE 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Our forfeit life to safety. Soon as fair 
 Aurora hath impearled the moorland dew. 
 By Oban to Fort- William we repair. 
 And of experience past the toils renew ; 
 While up Ben-Nevis, through the troubled air. 
 Despondence toils like Hope, nor deigns to rue 
 The misadventure though in tempest rolled. 
 Drenched with incessant rain, benumbed with bitter 
 cold. 
 
 BEN-NEVIS. (3d.) 
 
 Thy glens and subject mountains not in vain, 
 Ben-Nevis, court the sunbeam : but on high 
 Darkness that may be felt in endless train 
 Of cloud and tempest overspreads the sky ; 
 
 While as we mount into the gloom, our eye 
 Is blinded by the fast-descending rain
 
 AND INVERNESS. 213 
 
 That every moment more obscures the fane 
 Of silence, solitude, immensity. 
 
 So if ambitious reason would aspire 
 
 Beyond the sphere revealed, into the height 
 And sanctuary of mysteries divine. 
 
 There is who laughs to scorn her vain desire. 
 There is who interdicts her mazy flight 
 For ever from the vision of the shrine. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Hence let us wander to the three-fold way 
 That bore (if to tradition ear we lend) 
 Along Glenroy a monarch's armed array. 
 Vain figment ! let philosophy befriend 
 Our reason ; captived else, and led astray 
 In labyrinth of fable without end. 
 Where fancy chants the necromantic rhyme 
 That peoples with strange feats tlie murky void of 
 time.
 
 214 TO SKYE 
 
 PARALLEL ROADS OF GLENROY. 
 
 Ye mute memorials of the past ! what mean 
 Your windings that along the mountain side 
 With horizontal track impress the green, 
 Like the dark zones that streak the lucent pride 
 
 Of Jove ? Perchance the margins ye have been 
 Of some slow-ebbing lake, whose subtle tide 
 Stole through the barrier with a step serene, 
 Till now the far-diminished waters glide 
 
 Obscurely down the glen. Look, child of man ! 
 And muse, and feel how little thou canst know 
 Of nature; what obscure of doubt is thine. 
 
 Yet say not so : for thine it is to scan 
 The' arcana of redemption, and to glow 
 With faith, and hope, and charity divine.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 215 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 New wonders lure us on : what pencil's power, 
 What hues of prose or rhyme, of speech or pen, 
 Can image give of Letter-Findlach's bower 
 Deep-bosomed in Loch-Lochy's craggy glen ; 
 Or picture Invergarry and its tower. 
 Or where, in crystal stretching beyond ken, 
 Loch-Ness is barriered up with rock and wood. 
 And Mealfourvenie's brow o'erawes the darkened 
 nood? 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Hail, Glen of Caledonia! gulf profound 
 Mid Nature's ruin hallowed out by arm 
 Omnipotent, what time the Deluge found 
 His ministry recalled ; and in alarm 
 Retiring, left the fast-emerging ground 
 To reassume its vesture and each charm 
 Of renovated youth ; while overiiead 
 The showery arch in jjledge of grace and mercy spread.
 
 216 
 
 TO SKYE 
 
 So Truth reveals ; but with unsullied beam 
 How hard it is for truth on man to shine, 
 Unmingled, unobscured by fable, dream. 
 Fictitious miracle, or idol shrine ! 
 So meteors imitate the stars, and seem. 
 Like them, enkindled by the torch divine ; 
 But destined by their elemental birth 
 Heirs of destruction, fall precipitate to earth. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Some say, that when Columba went to brave 
 The Gods whom Scandinavia's realms adore. 
 With printless foot he glided o'er the wave. 
 But channeled deep at every step the shore : 
 The hills beneath him sinking, transit gave 
 Then first toward Norumbega from Lismore ; 
 And demons and Valkyriur at the sight 
 Sped to the burning lake from fiercer wrath their 
 flight.
 
 AND INVERNESS. 217 
 
 LII. 
 
 Some say that Odin, as the saint came on. 
 Saw with alarm that occidental star. 
 And hasting his refulgent arms to don. 
 Rode on his coal-black courser from afar 
 To bid the formidable guest begone. 
 Or by the falchion to decide the war. 
 But, mighty as he was, a mightier power 
 Around Columba's path was ministrant that hour. 
 
 TJII. 
 
 For when the monarch — failing by command 
 Or threat the meek invader to delay — 
 Unsheathed his weajion, the defeated brand 
 But opened for the foe a readier way. 
 In thunder on the Caledonian land -. 
 It fell ; and cleft the mountainous array 
 Of Morven and Argyle, till passage free 
 From Oban to Loch-Ness was riven, from sea to sea.
 
 218 TO SKYE 
 
 LIV. 
 
 But rouse : for if in fiction's lap too long 
 Our slumber, we awake like Samson shorn, 
 Start with ideal terrors, like the throng 
 That fled the winding of Astolfo's horn. 
 Or drone out life Armida's bowers among, 
 To friends a cumbrance, and to foes a scorn. 
 Each social tie, each public duty shun. 
 And skulk, like bats and owls, from daylight and the 
 sun. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Rouse, then : 't is no imaginary toil 
 Awaits us, up the measureless ascent 
 From Fort-Augustus pantingly to moil. 
 Our progress indefatigably bent. 
 Heedless of prickly furze or swampy soil. 
 The tangled copse, the craggy dreariment. 
 To where the Falls of Foyers with deafening sound 
 Shake high and low and far and wide the waste around.
 
 AND INVERNESS. SIO 
 
 LOWER FALL OF FOYERS. 
 
 Jjook up— look down ; but venture not too near 
 The treacherous verge : from what a fearful height 
 The torrent loads the turbid atmosphere 
 
 With spray, and baffles the bewildered sight 
 To penetrate the dread abyss below. 
 We gaze ; yet half draw backward in affright, 
 
 The chilly moisture starting on each brow. 
 While to the flood's immitigable roar 
 Our station trembles, and the mountains bow. 
 
 Enough! spare breath and vision — look no more; 
 Go — but remember long where thou hast been : 
 Remember thou hast stood upon the shore 
 
 Of death — and halt not heaven and earth between, 
 
 Lest in this night the call to judgment intervene.
 
 20 TO SKYE 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Beside the lake our progress we renew. 
 Where wild-flower fragrance loads the matin air, 
 And the steep banks are liveried in each hue 
 Of mantling grove, or crags abrupt and bare ; 
 And underneath the mound of grass and dew 
 The cemetery * hides its quiet lair ; 
 A narrow cell, yet ample for repose 
 From life, with all its toil, and turbulence and woes. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Down, down, thou fond repining : all is good 
 That heaven ordains, were man but wise to know. 
 Look on the rock, the mountain, and the wood. 
 On Inverfarigag's majestic brow. 
 On sky and cloud reflected in the flood : 
 Man, man alone empoisoning all below ; 
 And filling Nature's temple with alarms 
 Of passion, hate, and broil, and sacrilegious arms. 
 
 * A small burial-place, on the left hand as you proceed from tlie 
 "General's Hut" towards Inverfarigag. "Lair" in Scotland 
 denotes a " burial vault."
 
 AND INVERNESS. 221 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 How oft hath Inverfarigag surveyed 
 The fort, the watch-fire, and the feudal train, 
 Given shelter to the silent ambuscade. 
 Or echoed to the piper's warlike strain, : 
 While rout and slaughter scared the peaceful shade, 
 Wliile eagles hasted to the feast of slain, 
 While even in death foes grappled on the shore, 
 And the polluted lake reeked thick with human gore ! 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Loch-Ness is left behind : by moor and moss. 
 Facing the bleak north-east wind, we pursue 
 Our journey : one by one, the hills of Ross, 
 And huge Ben-Wyviss steal away from view ; 
 While fog-banks our abortive vision cross. 
 And evening's atmosphere is chilled with dew; 
 And with good cause belated travellers bless 
 The Caledonian Inn* of genial Inverness. 
 
 * The principal Inn at Inverness (a very excellent one), is called 
 the "Caledonian Hotel."
 
 222 TO SKYE AND INVERNESS. 
 
 INVERNESS. 
 
 Fair nursling of the northern sea ! look round 
 On Tomnaheurich, and where pilgrims creep 
 Along Craig-Phadric to survey the heap 
 Of vitrified redoubt : see how the ground 
 
 Glooms o'er Culloden like sepulchral mound. 
 How ocean thunders on the seaward steep, 
 And how its undulation sinks to sleep 
 In Moray's frith ; while every where resound 
 
 Carols of joy and peace. But let not pride 
 Inebriate thee, nor luxury betray 
 To dissolution. Think what now is Tyre, 
 
 What now is Nineveh, that once defied 
 
 Time, chance, and fate ! Serene and bright the day, 
 The night descends in famine, sword and fire. 
 
 END OF CANTO Tl.
 
 PART THE THIRD. 
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED.
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED. 
 
 CANTO 111. 
 
 I. 
 
 Man is a riddle, to himself unknown. 
 Of hope and fear, of loathing and desire — 
 Pursuits abandoned, projects overthrown — 
 A cloud, a spark, a smoke, a flash of fire ; 
 In vanity and guilt the seeds are sown 
 Of woes that life infest, till life expire ; 
 And though the present mock our hope, a gleam 
 Of future and remote still lengthens out the dream.
 
 226 INVERNESS 
 
 II. 
 
 Light-bounding onward, youth aspires to climb 
 The' ascent of life, and numbers every hour. 
 And chides it for delay, till manhood's prime 
 Give license to besiege the gates of power. 
 Of wealth or glory ; while the gulf of time 
 Yawns underneath unheeded, to devour 
 The crowd, the pomp, the revelry, the car 
 Of triumph; arts and arms, and policy and war. 
 
 III. 
 
 But when the strength is tasked, when heart and 
 
 brain 
 In error are perplexed, and worn with woes, 
 Then youth and enterprise cry out amain. 
 And envy age his honours and repose ; 
 While age is heard responsive to complain 
 And murmur that his day is at the close ; 
 And take reluctant leave of broil and rout. 
 The struggle and the chance, the victory and the shout.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 227 
 
 IV. 
 
 Deftly the pipe of Colin Clout * liath sung 
 How Mutabilitie claimed sovereign sway, 
 Up to the dragon-yoke of Cynthia sprung. 
 And in the regions of empyreal day 
 Raged, till Olymjius with the larum rung. 
 And bade the' astonished Thunderer obey ; 
 Nor heeded threatening, argument, or j^lea. 
 Till Nature's self pronounced the judgment and decree. 
 
 Even yet the Titanesse usurps command 
 O'er earth and ocean, over air and fire; 
 O'er tides below, that fluctuate on the strand. 
 And stars above, that kindle and expire. 
 But most her mirth is over sea and land, 
 To see poor Man, spell-goaded by desire. 
 Through sunshine and through storm infatuate roam, 
 Self-exiled from his friends and comfortable home. 
 
 • Spenser. — See bis noble fragment on Mutabilitie. 
 
 a2
 
 228 INVRENESS 
 
 VI. 
 
 For, sooth to say, nor clanger nor afFright, 
 Nor toil of vagrancy, nor dearth of fare, 
 Can countervail the wonder and delight 
 In hunting out whate'er is new and rare : 
 In ache or cramp, in cold or hunger's spite. 
 We dafF aside the world and worldly care. 
 And banqueting on novelty and change. 
 Forgetful of all else, o'er hill and valley range. 
 
 VII. 
 
 As wheresoe'er we rove, before us flies 
 The' horizon, so the boundary of desire 
 The further we advance, more distant lies ; 
 To longer pilgrimage we still aspire. 
 And slowly turn, reluctantly grow wise. 
 When home and duty warn us to retire : 
 For who would creep, if he had wings to soar, 
 Or slumber in the port, with ocean free before ?
 
 TO EDIJN' BURGH 229 
 
 VIII. 
 
 But what saith Wisdom ?"-" Time and chance o'er 
 
 all 
 Of old dominion held, and hold it still." 
 Wish as we please, the changes that befall 
 Are what they are, and will be what they will. 
 Necessity with magisterial call - 
 Bids us our being's end and aim fulfil ; 
 Forsake the mountain and forsake the burn. 
 And to the hedge-row plains of England make return. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Farewel then to the pier on ocean's marge. 
 Alternate thronged with many a varying band. 
 Some led by pleasure, some with gainful charge 
 Of traffic roaming over sea or land ; ■. , r- 
 Farewel the ferry and smoke-pennoned barge 
 That bore me o'er the billows to the strand 
 Of Ross, what time Ben-Wyviss to the morn 
 Unfurled his cloudy flag, and frowned in sullen scorn.
 
 230 invp:rness 
 
 Hark forward to the Grampians ! from the trade, 
 The buzz, the crowd, the turbulence of men. 
 Pass Dalnagarry's * hospitable shade. 
 Plunge into Findhorn's deep romantic glen. 
 Descend Sloch-Night, and mark how cloud-arrayed 
 Cairn-Gorm's dimensions huge elude the ken 
 Of mortal eye, till from Muscovia blow 
 North-eastern gales, and clear the darkness from his 
 brow ; 
 
 XI. 
 
 Above a thousand fair the fairest, hail. 
 Entrancing Aviemore ! the raptured mind 
 Emerges here from earth's diurnal pale. 
 And in a sweet delirium roves to find 
 The land of shadows, where amid the vale 
 Of wonder sits imagination shrined ; 
 And conjures up with ever-restless wand 
 To tenant space and time, the sprites of Elfin-Land. 
 
 * Dalnagarry. The place where first an Inn was established 
 upon the Highland Road.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 231 
 
 XII. 
 
 See copse and wood, see precipices bare, 
 
 See plain and stream, see mountains heaven-ward 
 
 piled! ' ■ 
 
 Was ever fabled paradise so fair, " 
 
 Was ever necromantic realm so wild ! " ' • ' " 
 A spell is on the earth, a spell in air ; 
 And by a thousand idle dreams beguiled, 
 We ransack thought and memory to recal 
 The fight, the tournament, the peacock and the hall. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Shall feat of Amadis the rhyme inspire, .r ■•■ ' 
 Or dream seraphical of cloistered sage ? ' vi ; 
 Shall Beltenebros languish o'er the lyre, ?> ■ ■ 
 Or Bruno muse in desert hermitao:e ? » ■ • 
 Or shall the crash of arms, the chant of quire. 
 The monk and chronicle, the knight and page. 
 Be mingled in the tale * how damsels bright, 
 King, queen, and paladin were feasting in delight. 
 
 * For this legend ot the Greal (the sacied chalice), see " The 
 Morte Arthur,"
 
 232 INVERNESS 
 
 XIV. 
 
 When suddenly the harp-string snapt asunder, 
 The startled Troubadour broke off his lay. 
 Earth trembled, each bold champion gazed in won- 
 der. 
 The bevy' of dames was tongue-tied with dismay; 
 Winds howled along the gallery; peals of thunder 
 Shook bower and buttress : o'er meridian day 
 The duskiness of night and awe was flung. 
 And merriment in doubt and fear suspended hung. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Anon, dissolving clouds of incense rain 
 Such fragrance as from Aaron's vesture fell ; 
 And with a charm that might have cured the brain 
 Of Saul, unnumbered airy voices swell 
 In more than angel harmony the strain; 
 And borne aloft by hands invisible 
 The Sacred Chalice enters, sphered in light 
 That dazzles and confounds the sense of human sight.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 233 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Before the Presence thus in splendour shrined 
 The darkness and the tempest fly away — 
 Silent the thunder, silent is the wind. 
 And soft serenity relumes the day; 
 For this the place and this the hour assigned 
 To single from that chivalrous array 
 The' adventurer that must guide the knightly train 
 To guard the Mystery from Paynim hands profane. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Wherefore the glories, one by one, withdrew 
 Their rays from shield and trophy, sword and spear, 
 A faint and yet a fainter glimmering threw 
 On queen and ladies, potentate and peer. 
 Resigned the palace to the fainter hue 
 Of ether and the golden sun's career, 
 Forsook the board of state, forsook the throne, 
 And settled in full beam on one young Knight alone :
 
 234 INVERNESS 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 So blazed the writing on Belshazzar's wall. 
 So did the fire-cloud on the Red-Sea shine. 
 Thine is the^ achievement, Titurel ; thine the call, 
 Son of Titurison, the guerdon thine. 
 Arise ! and over Britain, over Gaul, 
 Ocean and Pyrenees, pursue the sign 
 Which thou alone hast privilege to view. 
 To hear those angel sounds, to scent that nectarous 
 dew. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Still as he journeys onward, left and right 
 The sky is darkened, and the tempests frown. 
 While full before, in apparition bright. 
 The frontispiece and stairs of heaven are shown. 
 Whereon the blissful hierarchies of light 
 Ascending and descending wave the crown 
 Of gold, the vesture white, and branch of palm, 
 And round the Chalice sing the sacramental psalm.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 235 
 
 XX, 
 
 At length upon the mountain of their rest 
 Near Salvatierra, halt the pomp divine. 
 Where cherubim the fated space invest. 
 And thousand archangelic hands combine 
 To frame, in radiance worthy of the guest, 
 A tabernacle, and prepare a shrine 
 Wherein the hallowed vessel may be borne 
 Into barbaric realms beyond the gates of morn. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The Temple's everlasting doors expand ; 
 Thrones, dominations, powers, sing jubilee; 
 The shrine receives its charge, the seraph band 
 Once more attend the flying mystery. 
 On fiery courser Titurel scours the land, 
 Ambrosial clouds transport him over sea. 
 And intermission comes not, till he find 
 The vision's resting-place, and take the post assigned.
 
 236 INVERNESS 
 
 XXII. 
 
 But how his belted brethren heard the fame. 
 And followed his career, were long to tell ; 
 Or how the flower of Arthui-'s court by name 
 Were summoned forth, and bade the world farewel : 
 Enough ; that seven times seven around the flame 
 Of that lone sanctuary, in campment dwell. 
 Till Merlin the predestined age unfold. 
 And Uther's son once more revive the age of gold. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Then shall the falchion that erewhile was flung 
 Into Sabrina's wave, and brandished there 
 By faery hand, again aloft be hung. 
 Again attend its conquering lord's career. 
 And Arthur's praises shall again be sung 
 In strains Cunedha might arise to hear ; 
 And Titurel and his chivalry again 
 Around the royal board swell the triumphal strain.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 23 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 In banquet-hall by errant minstrel told. 
 Or whispered on the hearth of hermitage, 
 Such were the' imaginations that of old 
 Won audience from the warrior and the sasre : 
 Nor thou. Philosophy, with scorn behold 
 The rude romaunt of an unlettered age ; 
 For to those ancient bards was given the key 
 Of passion and of spell, of power and poetry. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Small need have we for prodigies to rano-e 
 The labyrinth of fiction. Oft the page 
 Of history, apparition sad and strange 
 Embodies on life's transitory stage. 
 Of rise and fall, of tumult or of chanjre. 
 That mock the subtle and confound the sage 
 And Scotia's heaths might utter many a tale 
 To give the dastard fire, or turn the hero pale.
 
 238 INVERNESS 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 High actions and high passions ever find 
 Their nursing-mother in the desert's gloom. 
 Where, on its own conceptions fed, the mind 
 Foregoes the cheerfulness of youthful bloom. 
 Muses upon the moanings of the wind. 
 Or from the mist deciphers death and doom ; 
 And, hovering sense and lunacy between. 
 Hears what was never heard, sees what was never seen. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Turn, foot of tyrant, turn from Alpine cell 
 Of Liberty ; and let the lion sleep. 
 Think on the tale of Gresler and of Tell — 
 The voyage, and the tempest, and the leap ! 
 Think how destruction on Burgundia fell, 
 Like avalanche down-thundering from the steep ! 
 Nor bid Helvetia summon to the field 
 Her warriors, prompt to die, but never known to yield.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 23f) 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Philosophising thus, from glen to glen, 
 Amid the fastnesses of hills we go. 
 Far from the visage and the voice of men, 
 Into the haunts of ptarmigan and roe. 
 On Ruthven's fort, or on the robber's den 
 We gaze, and listen for the groans of woe, 
 Or call upon the mountains for a strain 
 In praise of Him who formed the mountains and the 
 main. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Dark-rolling stream of Spey, companion wild 
 Of melancholy Badenoch ! not unawed 
 We look, and ponder how the princely child * 
 Of exile and of wandering, here no fraud 
 Surmised, nor danger ; Init with hope beguiled 
 The loss of battle-field, the vanished gaud 
 Of royalty ; and still could empire hold 
 O'er hearts impregnable to menace or to gold. 
 
 * After the battle of Culloden, Prince Charles Edward is said to 
 have been concealed, for a short time, in this neighbourhood.
 
 240 INVERNESS 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Thoughts yet more solemn at the portal wait 
 Of Etterich's Gill ; where dreary and sublime 
 Contending for the mastery, tell how fate 
 Disorganized Creation and the clime 
 Of Eden, while Compassion held debate 
 With Justice, to suspend the doom of Crime. 
 And lo ! congenial to such thoughts, what storm 
 And turbulence around, the scowling sky deform. 
 
 DALWHINIE. 
 
 Phantasma-like, o'er yonder mountain sweep 
 The clouds, or like the battailous array 
 Of armies rushing down the heathery steep 
 
 To fill the vale with tumult and dismay : 
 Yet boldly press we onward, and ere long 
 Receding they restore the tranquil day.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 24 i 
 
 So doubt and fear and sorrow, all the throng 
 Of sin and death, outrageous to devour, 
 Shrink baffled from the chosen few, who strong 
 
 In holiness and faith, deride the power 
 
 Of darkness, and unmoved the worst sustain ; 
 Like captive Indians in the torturing hour. 
 
 Silent and stern amid the fiery pain 
 
 That scorches up their eyes, and boils the brain. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Amid the Grampians, and beside the source 
 Whence Troon and Garry lead their infant stream 
 Each far from other in contrarious course, 
 We wander — starting frequent at the scream 
 Of eagles, or the torrent murmuring hoarse — 
 To Dalnacardoch, where remotely gleam 
 (Tiike rocks in mist and storm, portending woe) 
 Ben-Vreachy, and the bold contour of lien-y-Gloe.
 
 242 INVERNESS 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Schehallian * next is seen, where art profound 
 Measured attraction's bias and degree : 
 Then smile the' amenities of Blair, around 
 Begirt with lawn and river, rock and tree ; 
 Where still the princely Chieftain bids resound 
 His mansion with the sportsman's revelry, 
 As when his ancestors of Athol blew 
 The signal for the chase, and o'er the desert flew. 
 
 BLAIR-ATHOL. 
 
 From the fair vale ascending to the height 
 Of wilderness and moor, a gallant train 
 Welcome the morning breeze, the morning light, 
 And couched in foss, or on the fern-clad plain, 
 
 Against the stately hart conspire. In vain 
 His fleetness ; vain his beauty, and his might : 
 
 * Schehallian. Famous for the Observations of Dr. Maskelyne.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 243 
 
 The rifle rings ; again and yet again 
 Resounding, till the day give place to night. 
 
 Hear from the dead, Arviragus ; give ear, 
 Guiderius, Belisarius: from the dead 
 Awake, all ye that ever scoured the dale. 
 
 Or followed over upland the career 
 
 Of hound and horn ; ride o'er the mountain's head 
 In clouds, and swell with hunting-cry the gale. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 But not alone the noise of sylvan war 
 Winds through the dingle, thunders o'er the green. 
 Not wood alone and precipice to l)ar 
 Our path, in pomp of terror intervene : 
 A sterner sound rebellows from afar, 
 A sterner vision troubles the serene, 
 And plants the monumental stone to tell 
 Wliere battle-meed was won, and where the mighty 
 fell. 
 
 R 2
 
 244 INVERNESS 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 And is a dumb memorial all we find 
 To register the days and deeds of old ? 
 Hath not a spirit in the northern wind 
 Of Old Mortality the legend told ? 
 And how (the task of slaughter done) reclined 
 The Graham in colloquy with Morton bold. 
 Gazed with enthusiast eye on glory's charms. 
 And breathed the presage wish to die in victory's arms. 
 
 KILLIECRANKIE. 
 
 Behold the standard, hear the' acclame 
 That greets an exiled Monarch's name ! 
 See the devoted of the North 
 Like flood, like storm, like fire break forth ! 
 In ambush firm, in combat bold ; 
 Disdaining hardship, hunger, cold.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 245 
 
 They thread the vale, they climb the brow, 
 They couch upon the mountain snow ; 
 They champion winter on his throne, 
 And perisli, ere they utter moan. 
 
 As eagles train their young to fly 
 Or to the quarry or the sky, 
 To quit the nest, and ply the wing 
 In wider and yet wider ring ; 
 So to the destined pass, Dundee 
 Cheers on his Highland infantry ; 
 And, hark ! how Killiecrankie's glen 
 Reverberates to the strife of men : 
 Foe grapples foe, blade rings on blade. 
 Slaughter and rout deform the glade ; 
 Blood on the grass, blood on the stones. 
 Rage in the shouts, death in the groans ! 
 Confusion, inroad, and affright. 
 Despondence, and reluctant flight. 
 
 Amid the tumult and the roar, 
 Triumphant, yet demanding more,
 
 246 INVERNESS 
 
 Regardless what is lost or won. 
 Lavish of life, till all be done, 
 Dundee insatiate rushes on ; 
 When levelled tube and fatal aim 
 Arrest his agony of fame : 
 He falls ; but falling grasps the prize ; 
 A Conqueror lived, a Conqueror dies ! 
 
 Interpret not his fate in gloom. 
 Nor say, untimely was the doom : 
 Let not a sorrow, nor a sigh. 
 Nor varying cheek, nor moistened eye. 
 Wrong the remembrance of the brave ; 
 Their deeds, their death-field, and their grave. 
 
 Battle is at an end ; — no more 
 Shall Caledonia reek with gore. 
 The day expires at set of sun ; 
 When fell Dundee, the war was done.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 247 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Unhappy he, whom Nature cannot warm 
 To praise and gratitude, while round him spread 
 A thousand shapes of beauty and alarm 
 Where the stream lingers in his rocky bed, 
 Spell-bound by Killiecrankie's awful charm. 
 That heaping crag and forest overhead 
 Shuts out the clouds, the breezes, and the sun. 
 And hides the pomyt of day in penitential dun. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 A solemn scene : yet on the wings of time 
 Each moment toward more solemn scenes we fly. 
 And gradual close on this terrestrial clime 
 And all its levities, our wearied eye. 
 Quitting the pranks of youth, the cares of prime. 
 For trance of meditation how to die. 
 Friend ibllows friend ; like gleaning-grapes they 
 fall: 
 And (), may we ourselves be ready at the call !
 
 248 INVERNESS TO EDINBURGH. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Fair is Fascally ! lovely is the stream 
 Of Tummel ! pleasant is Pitlochry's vale. 
 And Moulinarn, whose mountains coyly gleam 
 Through the cerulean vapours of the dale : 
 But loveliest of them all, beneath the beam 
 Of evening, where the boundless woods impale 
 Majestic Tay, the venerable tower 
 Of old Dunkeld is seen beside the ducal bower. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Fallen is the splendour, vacant is the seat 
 Of power Episcopal : for not aloof 
 Hath time in homage past, though incomplete 
 The havoc of his adamantine hoof; 
 Compelled even yet to spare one last retreat 
 For worship underneath the choral roof 
 That heard of old the white-stoled votaries pay 
 The vocal tribute thus at each return of day.
 
 LAUDES. 
 
 FROM THE LATIN. 
 
 The rising radiance of the morn 
 
 Invites us to the sacred fane ; 
 And for the blessings of the light 
 
 We wake anew the grateful strain. 
 
 But all the splendours of the dawn 
 
 Before Messiah's glory die ; 
 In him we live, in him we move : 
 
 Hosanna to the Lord on high ! 
 
 He bursts the barrier of the tomb — 
 He flames in panoply of light ; 
 
 And who can utter, who explore 
 That mystery of eternal Might ! 
 
 For us he suffered on the cross. 
 
 For us he triumphed o'er the grave ; 
 
 Nor tongue can speak, nor thought survey 
 That Love omnipotent to save.
 
 250 LAUDES. 
 
 Desisting from the six days' work, 
 Jehovah looked on all around; 
 
 And the new Universe beheld 
 
 With beauty and perfection crowned. 
 
 But washed in the Redeemer's blood 
 From condemnation and from stain. 
 
 The world to more redundant joy 
 And better hope hath risen again. 
 
 While nature's charms unfold to view, 
 Touched by the sun's returning beam. 
 
 From earth our meditation soars 
 Into the courts of the Supreme ; 
 
 And Christ the' enlightener of our hearts, 
 
 Image of Majesty divine. 
 Bids through mortality's dim haze 
 
 The glimpses of his glory shine. 
 
 The morning-star ascends on high. 
 And suppliant to our God we pray—
 
 LAUDES. 25 1 
 
 " Father unseen, yet ever nigh, 
 Light uncreated ! guide our way. 
 
 " Son of the Father, Lamb of God, 
 
 Almighty, everlasting Lord ! 
 By night, by day, in life and death, 
 
 Vouchsafe thy presence, teach thy word. 
 
 " Come Holy Spirit from above. 
 
 Illumine heart, exalt desire. 
 And bear away the soul to heaven 
 
 In whirlwind of ethereal fire. 
 
 "Guide us, adorable Triune, 
 
 With cloud and pillar of thy Law; 
 
 That all enjoined, we may perform — 
 From all forbidden, may withdraw. 
 
 " From chain and prison-house of clay 
 
 To freedom and to jubilee 
 Deliver us : from death to life. 
 
 From earth to heaven, from sin to Thee."
 
 252 INVERNESS 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Now night approaching softens into shade 
 The lustre of the twilight's saffron glow. 
 Form, tint, and grouping of the landscape fade. 
 The day-beam dies away on Birnam's brow, 
 And darkness, thickening every league, hath made 
 An universal blank of Nature's show. 
 Ere warily we steal, by meadows green. 
 To the fair town of Perth, unseeing and unseen. 
 
 XL. 
 
 There to consult the pillow, and explore 
 The world of dreams, where in fantastic guise 
 Strange masqueraders dance ; the days of yore, 
 Powers of the deep, and princedoms of the skies. 
 Realms transatlantic, friends that are no more. 
 Sprites, wizards, apparitions, mysteries. 
 That mingle, mingle, mingle, making night 
 A journey without toil through empires of delight.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 253 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Yet why is this ? and wherefore should the soul. 
 That boasts a native energy to climb 
 Where planets, suns, and constellations roll, 
 Or where archangels raise the chant sublime, 
 Thus droop, amenable to sleep's control. 
 And waste in lethargy the wealth of time ? 
 It is the badge of servitude — the chain : 
 Of our imprisonment in frailty and in pain. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Be stirring with the lark, and walk around. 
 The hills, the city, and the meads to view. 
 The bridge, Kinnoul,* the river and the mound. 
 And where the walls of Scone have risen anew 
 In pomp patrician. But when fields imbrowned 
 Are ripening in meridian heat, pursue 
 The' umbrageous path upwinding to the lawns 
 Where bleaches on its height the castle of Kinfauns. 
 
 • Kinnoul. Tlio suburb of Terth bevond the bridge.
 
 2^4 
 
 INVERNESS 
 
 CASTLE OF KINFAUNS. 
 
 While on thy stately growth, Kinfauns, we gaze. 
 On parapet, and battlement, and tower, 
 What sudden darkness overwhelms thy bower. 
 What sudden tempest roars, what lightning blaze 
 
 Awakes the thunder ? Horror and amaze 
 Shall thus environ mortals in the hour 
 Predestinate all nations to devour. 
 To break up ocean, earth's foundation raze. 
 
 And set the firmament on fire. Look down 
 To rescue us. Redeemer, King of kings. 
 In sorrow once and humiliation seen 
 
 On earth ; now riding forth in thy renown. 
 To judgment ; throned upon archangel wings. 
 Girt with Omnipotence, Eternal Nazarene !
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 255 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Welcome the solemn peal that hath refined 
 Our meditation from sublunar toys. 
 From cares and projects emptier than the wind. 
 From weary pomp, and simulated joys; 
 From links of iron that ambition bind. 
 From luxury, that peace and health destroys. 
 And from all vanities that to the sky 
 Like rockets mount aloft, like rockets burst and die. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 How hap])y — if his happiness he know — 
 The man whom rank and wealth but prompt the more 
 Like a good steward wisely to bestow 
 The superflux * of his abundant store. 
 But whatsoe'er our talent here below. 
 Who best employ it, best their God adore. 
 Lift up the heart, and let it inly burn 
 With sacrifice of prayer while we to Perth return. 
 
 * Take physic, pomp; 
 Kxpose thyself to feel what wretches feel ; 
 That thou mayest shake the superflux to llieni, 
 And shew the heavens more just. — King Lear.
 
 256 INVERNESS 
 
 PERTH. 
 
 Here first in Caledonia's realm the throne 
 Was reared of Reformation ; here the ray 
 Of reason and religion chased away 
 The frere, the pardoner, the cloistered drone, 
 
 The pyx, the rosary, the saint of stone ; 
 And bade the penitent offender pray 
 No longer to the canonized clay, 
 But orisons present to God alone. 
 
 So when the nitrous fumigation blends 
 With tainted air, it combats and expels 
 The venom ; pestilence and fever fly; 
 
 Hope like a seraph messenger descends. 
 
 Breathes balm empyreal through infected cells. 
 And lights anew with health the death-glazed eye. 
 
 (
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 257 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Next morn in chariot fair, with cattle sleek. 
 From Perth the road south-westward we pursue ; 
 Strath-Airn's rich vale, Benvoirlich's cloudy peak, 
 And wind-swept Auchterarder rise to view ; 
 Strath-Allan cowers beneath the moorlands bleak. 
 And huge Benledi scowls in distance blue ; 
 And SherifF-Muir we pass, where war witli smile 
 Ambiguous mocked the strife of Mar and of Argyle. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 All hail, Dunblane, thy salutary spring. 
 Thy bridge, thy prospect, thy cathedral tall, 
 Where once the thane, the prelate, or the king 
 Laid gift on altar, worshipped in the stall ! 
 Now moss and ivy unrestricted fling 
 Tlieir veil o'er tottering arch and western wall. 
 Where lapse of ages many a breach hath riven : 
 Yet still the choir survives, and still to praise is given. 
 
 s
 
 258 INVERNESS 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Much musing how the subtleties of time 
 Turn art and order into disarray, 
 Feed like a canker on our youthful prime, 
 And dog- the steps of manhood with decay, 
 Pull down dominion, metamorphose clime. 
 And wear the Pyrenees and Alps away — 
 We cross the Forth, and seek in Stirling town 
 Quaint monuments of art, high records of renown. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Though in decrepitude thy glory end. 
 In rusted weapon and unsinewed arm ; 
 Though nor magnificence thine age attend. 
 Nor wealth increase, nor population swarm ; 
 Yet, Stirling, with Edina still contend 
 Undoubting for the prize of Nature's charm: 
 From thy proud castle bid her look, and die 
 Beneath the withering frown of Highland majesty,
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 2o9 
 
 STIRLING. 
 
 Carse of Strivlinga, Forth's capricious stream, 
 Full oft into thyself meandering round, 
 And mountains that magnificently bound 
 The blue horizon, why are ye the theme 
 
 Of bard or painter ? Can immortals dream 
 Of paradise where sin hath scathed the ground 
 Can habitation of delight be found 
 In other climate than the' immediate beam 
 
 Of bliss empyreal ? Such is the decree 
 
 Of heaven ; that ease and solace may beguile 
 The longing of procrastinated hope. 
 
 And gently lead us to the final scope 
 
 Of pilgrimage, when the Redeemer's smile 
 Dissolves the bond of our mortality.
 
 260 INVERNESS 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 What foretaste of Elysium 't is to woo 
 The Muse in camp, or city, or by stealth 
 Where rivulets murmur, and tlie turtles coo : 
 And who would change it for Cornaro's health. 
 The helm of state, the wreath of Waterloo, 
 Assyria's monarchy, Potosi's wealth. 
 Or all their pomps united, yet of earth 
 Still redolent ? Not such Imagination's birth, 
 
 L. 
 
 Pure effluence 1 guiltless of corporeal mold, 
 In mercy left to mitigate the fall 
 From Paradise ; more excellent than gold. 
 Or strength, or pleasure, or renown, or all 
 Existence can on this side heaven unfold. 
 And chartered with the privilege to call 
 Life from the sepulchre, from silence sound. 
 And spangle with strange worlds the measureless 
 profound.
 
 TO EDINBIJIIGII. 261 
 
 LI. 
 
 Heaven pardon me if such endearment clung 
 Too closely, and with disproportioned sway- 
 Around me — if like summer cloud it hung 
 Between my vision and the' unerring way 
 Of truth, while in mine ear the murmur riinir 
 From grove and cromlech of Druidic lay. 
 And snatches of all wondrous things were seen 
 That people ether, fire, earth, flood and subterrene. 
 
 LII. 
 
 Yet say, did verse demoralize of yore 
 The harp of Israel and the hymn of praise ? 
 Or may not song of Castaly adore 
 The wonders of Jehovah and the ways P 
 At noon the larks in mirth and music soar. 
 At midnight Philomela irilnite pays; 
 And from each wood and field, each rock and thorn, 
 Are poured the melodies of vesper and nfmom.
 
 26-2 INVERNESS 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Urania, spread the wing-, and higher fly 
 Than Hippocrene and the' Aonian hill 
 Through the dimensionless ethereal sky, 
 And help the spirits of the Just to fill 
 The firmament with joy and harmony. 
 On thousand themes expatiating at will 
 Of virtue, charity, and love divine : 
 For thine the bounty. Lord, and be the glory thine. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 And when — like eagle chained — the mind is drawn 
 Downward perforce from her aspiring flight. 
 Then o'er terrestrial dimness let the dawn 
 Of fancy shed abroad Elysian light. 
 Let flowers converse, let fairies ring the lawn. 
 Let nightingales their roses woo by night. 
 Let all things be disclosed that shrink from view. 
 The strange be probable, the' impossible be true.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. '26:i 
 
 LV. 
 
 Self-led, self-lost, on visionary ground, 
 In every breeze Petrarca's plaint we hear ; 
 In shuddering- awe behold the gulf profound. 
 The dreadful portal, and the Judge severe ; 
 Impale the Holy Sepulchre around 
 With Paynim scimitar and Christian spear. 
 Or sum the hosts of Afric, France, and Spain, 
 That followed Agramant, or fought for Charlemagne. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Amid the workings of the deep-fraught soul 
 We care not for the body's lumpish load. 
 Nor take we note of weather, fair or foul ; 
 Hilly or level, straight or winding road : 
 Canal may stagnate. Frith of Forth may roll, 
 Linlithgow boast of royalty's abode ; 
 But such tame beauties pall upon the mind 
 That ponders in regret the Highlands left behind.
 
 264 INVERNESS 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Not that with eye ungratified we view 
 The craggy seat of Arthur, and survey 
 Edina's double city, old and new ; 
 Here in disordered pomp and loose array 
 Bronzed with antiquity's austerest hue, 
 There fresh and fair, magnificently gay. 
 Squares, churches, mansions, crowding on the sight 
 In symmetry and state, in wonder and delight. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Nor will we not with honour name the' hotel 
 Where Barry's blithe philosophy presides, 
 Where ease, tranquillity, and comfort dwell. 
 Where every hour in change of pleasure glides; 
 Where magic, felt not seen, adorns the cell. 
 And sumptuous cheer and racy wine provides. 
 Till nought be wanting, but the Highland air 
 And exercise, that made oat-bannocks dainty fare.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 265 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Yet hence, even hence, does memory nuike return 
 To Dalnaspidel's melancholy wild. 
 And quit the lure of luxury to sojourn 
 Among the Grampians in confusion piled ; 
 Explore the vale, and wander up the burn, 
 Where once ten thousand wayward thoughts be- 
 guiled 
 The loneliness, and painted on the brain 
 Wraith, brownie, mountain-fay, and mermaid of the 
 main. 
 
 LX. 
 
 Time was, ere Superstition's reign began, 
 No night-hag footed it athwart the wold. 
 Nor fetch nor banshee round the' abode of man 
 By vision or by shriek di.saster told ; 
 Nor ghost had power to blast, nor witch to ban. 
 Nor evil eye shot murrain through the fold. 
 Nor second-sight phantasma scared the view. 
 Nor coffin in the fire, nor taper burning blue.
 
 266 
 
 INVERNESS 
 
 LXI. 
 
 But never more Creation's course shall run 
 As in the freshness of the natal hour. 
 What time mortality might view the sun 
 Of Truth without a cloud, in Eden's bower ; 
 What time our primal Father had begun 
 His race from earth to heaven in peace and power, 
 Cheered with the voice of God, and the delight 
 Of angel guest by day, and angel song by night. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 How fallen, how changed : how groveling in the 
 
 dust. 
 How sold to avarice, how ingulfed in shame ! 
 What rivalry, what feud, what breach of trust. 
 What bondage for a bauble or a name ! 
 What idol shrines, whence murder linked with lust 
 Sends false religion forth in sword and flame ; 
 Bids from one household, foe encounter foe. 
 And all the flight of time be chronicled in woe.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 267 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Woe to the' inhabiters of earth ! the roar 
 Is heard of war and rumour, while the sway 
 Of scarlet-coloured beast from shore to shore 
 Embattles kings, and leads them in array 
 Against Messiah's host ; till drunk with gore, 
 The monster, in his proud triumphal day. 
 Throned in the temple, worshipped at the shrine. 
 And rushing to the fight on hills of Palestine, 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Perish at Armageddon : * then begin 
 Goodness and Mercy their Millennial reign. 
 When fallen the foe, and silent is the din 
 Of warfare; when the lion shakes his mane 
 In dalliance with the kid : earth freed from sin 
 Is now an altar of the boundless fane 
 Wherein tiic sun by day, tlio moon by night. 
 Are overwhelmed and lost in deluges of light. 
 
 * See the latter part of Faber's Appendix to liis Sacred Calendar 
 of Prophecy. I mean, so much of it as contains tlic Chronology 
 from .\.D. 18tj5 to tlie end of the world.
 
 268 
 
 INVERNESS 
 
 LXV. 
 
 As, when the furnaces of iEtna sleep, 
 The rose and orange scent Trinacrian air ; 
 As, when the whirlwind slumbers on the deep. 
 The mariners in thankfulness and prayer 
 Hail their deliverance; so the nations weep 
 No longer J dread no peril, know no care; 
 Devise no injury, suspect no harm. 
 And in oblivion steep the memory of alaim, 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Till, like a blast from the Sirbonian fen. 
 The' Arch-Enemy infection spread once more. 
 And make the Temple's porch and court a den 
 For idols and the blood-delighting lore 
 Of demon-gods; stir up the sons of men. 
 And bid the thousand throats of battle roar. 
 While round the city and the camp where dwell 
 The worshippers of heaven, their armies rage and 
 swell.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 2G9 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Snorting out threats and massacre, they sing 
 The songs of blasphemy, they shout for joy; 
 They cry for vengeance like the' Egyptian king, 
 " Pursue them, overtake them, and destroy ; 
 Their young ones to the beasts of ravin fling. 
 And with their flesh the famished eagle cloy ; 
 For ours the domination over all. 
 And as our pleasure bids, shall empire rise or fall." 
 
 They come — they come — they come- 
 East and west their shouts reply. 
 North and south they shake the sky. 
 As when Alpine hills of snow 
 Overwhelm the vales below. 
 All is uproar and affright. 
 All is chaos, all is night ; 
 So their countless armies tread 
 In thunder that awakes the dead:
 
 270 INVERNESS 
 
 See them cumber all the main. 
 Cover mountain, cover plain. 
 Further than from Carmel's brow 
 Pilgrims gaze o'er seas below : 
 Thousand suns their falchions play. 
 Dazzling the meridian day ; 
 Thousand stars their watch-fires beam. 
 Scaring night with hideous gleam : 
 Theirs is ocean, theirs the land. 
 Who their onset shall withstand ? 
 Sword and famine at their side. 
 Pestilence and havoc ride ; 
 Paradise before them find, 
 Desolation leave behind. 
 
 Air is darkened : o'er the deep 
 Horror and destruction sweep. 
 Son of radiance, morning-star. 
 Wilt thou challenge heaven to war ? 
 With the voice of earthquake roar, 
 Like a lion wash in gore
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 271 
 
 Mane and footstep ; clutch the prey, 
 And with carnage strew the way. 
 Kindle fight, let clarion's breatli 
 Summon to the work of death ; 
 Let thy banner be unfurled. 
 Giant-like bestride the world. 
 Veil the morn, bedim the noon, 
 Trample on the sun and moon ; 
 In thy majesty and might 
 Mock the regencies of light. 
 Bid the centre and the pole 
 Homage yield to thy control. 
 Seize the censer, seize the shrine. 
 And proclaim thyself divine. 
 
 Mighty Conqueror, canst thou spy 
 Secrets of futurity ? 
 Mighty Conqueror, canst thou tell 
 On what mount of oracle 
 The terrors of the' Almighty dwell i* 
 Thinks thy jubilant career 
 Of the shrine and altar near.
 
 272 INVERNESS 
 
 Where the' unconscious victim stands, 
 Where the sacrificial hands 
 Pausing, leave a moment's room 
 'Twixt the warning and the doom ^ 
 Eyes there are that never sleep, 
 Ears that faithful record keep 
 Of the mourning and the cry, 
 And the supplicating sigh, 
 And the multitude that groan, 
 Reft of all, save God alone. 
 
 Nations hurry to the field. 
 Lance they poise, and falchion wield ; 
 Spur the steed, ascend the car. 
 Point to plunder from afar ; 
 Clash their arms, and loudly call — 
 " Onward, onward to the wall." 
 Trench they fill ; the gates they burn. 
 Tower and rampart overturn, 
 Up they mount : the deed is done ; 
 The bulwark stormed, the city won !
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 273 
 
 Did the thunder roll on high, 
 Heard ye the despairing cry? 
 Where the tumult and the boast, 
 Where the victory, where the host? 
 Look and listen : not a sound, 
 Not a vestige to be found ! 
 Idol ensigns, pomp obscene. 
 Vanished, as they ne'er bad been ; 
 Arms and armour idly rust; 
 Power is ashes, pride is dust — 
 The winding-sheet is o'er them spread, 
 The worm is partner of their bed. 
 Fire is preying on their bones ; 
 Lo ! the ruin — hark ! the groans ; 
 The smoke of torment, and the roar, 
 Ascending up for evermore.
 
 274 INVERNESS 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Look, ye delivered ; at this awful hour 
 Of visitation, waken and attend ; 
 And the whole soul surrendering to the power 
 Of faith and virtue, wait creation's end. 
 The tokens of the times around you lour, 
 The lights of ether heavily descend. 
 And eve and night are gathering on the world. 
 That reels and staggers ; soon in ruin to be hurled. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 Seize the last lingering moment left of choice. 
 While yet redemption warns you to beware : 
 While angel ministers of grace rejoice 
 O'er one, but one, escaping from the snare. 
 And hover round to listen' for the voice — 
 That gladdens Heaven — of penitential prayer : 
 O let them not retrace to realms of light. 
 Without one sinner saved, their disappointed flight.
 
 TO EDINBURGH. 275 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Will ye not hear ? A little while, and, lo ! 
 The trumi^ets and the seals have past away. 
 The vials have poured out their final woe, 
 And signs and symbols usher in the day 
 When worlds dissolving- labour in the throe 
 Of second-birth from fire ; when in dismay 
 The constellations shake, the spheres are rent 
 Asunder, and destruction smites the firmament. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 
 
 ADVENT. 
 
 Globe of the world. He comes ! from heaven on hiirh 
 He comes : arise from the sepulchral gloom, 
 Arise, new earth, air, ocean, from the womb 
 Of death : on seraphim behold him fly. 
 
 Beneath his feet the darkness of the sky. 
 Walking- upon the winds, he cites to doom 
 All realms, all generations from the tomb 
 With trumpet and the shout of victory. 
 
 Deep are the groans of pestilence and war ; 
 
 Deep are the groans when earthquake, flood and fire 
 Unpeople nations ; what shall be the groan 
 
 When sun and moon, when space and time expire ? 
 He comes — he comes — he thunders from afar; 
 Fall on us, mountains : hide us from the throne. 
 
 END OF CANTO III.
 
 NOTES 
 
 AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Voyage to StafFa. Canto I. Stanza xvi. 
 
 This allusion to the ancient superstitions of the Hebrides, will 
 have light thrown upon it by the following extract of a letter from 
 the learned Stanley Faber. 
 
 " The oriental worship of Buddha spread far into the west ; and 
 with certain modifications, prevailed alike both among tlie Celts and 
 their successors tiie Goths. In the east, Buddha bears the titles 
 of Arhan and Sakya ; while his consort is denominated Ila. In the 
 old British mythology, Hu or Beli (the Celtic Buddha) was called 
 Budd, Budwas, and Arawn : while the moon, his fabled floating 
 consort, was sometimes stiled Hela, or Helan. jSow you will 
 observe, tlial in the Sanscrit, the final a, like the French final e, 
 is quiescent. Buddha, consequently, is pronounced Buddli, or 
 Butt : and Sakya, Saky or Sky. This last name I cannot jyroie to 
 have been used among the Celts ; but 1 suspect such to have been 
 the case. These being our preliminaries, mark the curious attes- 
 tation of the traveller Demetrius, as cited by Plutarch in iiis treatise 
 on the failure of Oracles. He says, that there are many desert 
 scattered islets round Britain, some of which are called the islands 
 of demons or hero-gods ; doubtless, as common sense shows, the 
 demons or hero-gods of the country. He does not say, that they 
 bear the precise names of those demons, but, I think, his lano-u;iire 
 implies as mucli ; and to this opinion I the ratlier incline, from the
 
 280 
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA : 
 
 actual identity of the names, as they still exist. For Bute, I have 
 little doubt, is the sacred isle of Buddh or Budd or Budvvas : Arran, 
 of Arhan or Arawn : Ila, of Ik or Hela ; and Skye, of Sakya or Sky. 
 That the Scottish Isles are meant by Demetrius, is plain from his 
 accurate epithet <T7ropada9. Each holy isle was a representation 
 of the floating moon, or, in plain English, the Ark : which was 
 fabled to have assumed (after the Deluge) the form of a dove. 
 Accordingly another sporad islet of well-known sanctity in the 
 same group, is still called lona ; which I take to be the oriental 
 lona, and the Sanscrit Yoni. Sometimes it was called Hy-Colomb ; 
 the name of the God Hu or Hy (or Budd) being thus combined 
 with Colomb. The Irish have still a notion, that a large tract of 
 land was once swallowed up to the north-east of Ireland, nothing 
 being left but these sporad Islands. Sometimes, however, a strong 
 sight and a stronger faith will behold an enchanted paradisiacal 
 island, or a wonderful city floating upon the waves. (Origin of 
 Pagan Idolatry. Vol. ii. pp. 366, 367). Another island is still 
 denominated Coll, from the Celtic Coll or the Indian Cala. Deme- 
 trius has a fine wild story of the gigantic form of Cronus or Budd 
 sleeping in a cave in one of the sacred islets, bound (I think) with 
 woollen fetters, and guarded by demons. I cite it somewhere, but 
 cannot tell the exact place. The notion is quite oriental, both as to 
 the sleep and the giant form." 
 
 Canto I. Stanza Ixvi. 
 
 In this cave of Pingal, the dim diffusion of the light gradually 
 dying away along the roof and sides (as in the vestibule of the 
 Castleton Cavern, Derbyshire) the noble dimensions, the rude colos- 
 sal grandeur of the architecture, and the ceaseless thunder of the 
 waves dashing over the rocks, and contrasting the deep gloom witli 
 their vast sheets of snowy foam, impressed the mind with an awful 
 sense of His presence 
 
 whose niajesly, nor tliought 
 
 Can image, nor the congregated choirs 
 Of men and angels utter. Were each orb 
 Through yon cerulean depths of ether stored
 
 281 
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 With tenants numberless, and gifted all 
 
 Willi reason and willi speech articulate, 
 
 And in eacli uionlli a thousand various tongues 
 
 With wisdom and sweet eloquence imbued 
 
 Surpassing human ; their united voice 
 
 T' illustrate his perfections were but vain 
 
 And feeble ; feeble the concent sublime 
 
 That never-resting, never-ending, tills 
 
 The heaven of heavens, while saintly harp and shout, 
 
 Archangels, principalities, and powers, 
 
 Eternity, and wild intinitude, 
 
 Commemorate with hallelujahs high 
 
 His love uncircumscribed and might supreme. 
 
 Canto II. Stanza x. 
 
 As we entered the Sound of Mull the swell gradually subsided ; 
 
 still however marking with a long gleam of brightness the romantic 
 
 shores of Mull and Morven. There is something in the mournful 
 
 beauty of these wild regions 
 
 That with a deep and undefined delight 
 
 Fills the surrendered soul — Thulaba. Book ix. 
 
 "Redi makes his Bacchus say, of a favourite wine, 
 
 Mi fa nascer nel petto 
 
 Un indistinto incognito diletto, 
 
 Che si pu6 ben sentire. 
 
 Ma nou si puo ridire. — Bacco in Toacana, 
 
 Canto II. Stanza xxxix. 
 At the mouth of Loch-Leven, and at the Corran Ferry, wheic 
 
 solitude, gloom, and sublimity surrounded us. 
 
 -a thousand fantasies 
 
 Began to throng into the memory. 
 
 Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire. 
 
 And airy tongues, that syllable men's names 
 
 On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses. — Comus. 
 
 Canto II. Stanza 1. 
 Though unfortunate in having twice been on the summit of Ben- 
 Nevis, yet both times dcbanud tlie prospect by impenetrable storm; 
 I was fortunate in having both times the same guide, John M'Donald 
 by name, whom I can safely recommend (as a most excellent con- 
 ductor) to nil whom it may concern.
 
 282 
 
 VOYAGE TO STAFFA ; 
 
 Canto III. Stanza xiv. 
 
 Nothing can be finer than the approach to Ballachulish, or ' ' Tow n 
 of the Narrows ;" so called from its situation on a narrow part of 
 Loch-Leven. Near the Corran Ferry, the road from Fort-William 
 turns suddenly to the left ; and after winding among some picturesque 
 combinations of broken ground, discovers all at once, in hastily 
 sweeping round an angle of the hills, the enchanted retreat of Loch- 
 Leven. The Loch itself, running up eastward from Loch-Linnhe, 
 floats the valley : its southern bank rising at once in a towering 
 steepness of verdant hills chequered with crags and wood; while 
 the northern shore leaves a little tract of level ground skirting the 
 water, before it begins to rise in very bold and varied eminences, 
 hung with trees, or starting up in bare pinnacles of rock. The head 
 of the Loch is overhung by the rugged and desolate mountains 
 around Glen-coe, spreading themselves into a thousand intricate 
 forms of fantastic grandeur ; among which the singular summit, 
 called the Pap of Glencoe, may be considered as an object of pecu- 
 liar attraction ; if indeed any distinction can be made, where the 
 whole superb circumference conspires to penetrate the spectator with 
 delight and awe. 
 
 Canto III. Stanza xix. 
 
 Glen-Coe may be called the channel of the river Coe; and is 
 a deep valley, winding among lofty hills scarped by the hand of 
 Nature into a thousand startling forms of inaccessible sterility. 
 The character of the Pass is a sublimity almost terrific, and well 
 suited to its dismal history. It should be visited in gloom or moon- 
 light, amid sweeping rain or drifting snow, the savageness of winter 
 or the uproar of a storm, "when the cloud bursts on Cona, and a 
 thousand ghosts shriek at once on the hollow wind." 
 
 The river Coe, which gives name to Glencoe, is the Cona of 
 Ossian. (Fingal. Book i.). "The streams of Cona answered to the 
 voice of Ossian." — One of the hills which inclose it, is still called 
 Scorna-fena, or The Hill of Fingal's People.
 
 NOTES AND ILI.USTKATIONS. 283 
 
 Canto III. Stanza xl. 
 
 The country through which the military road passes from Gieii- 
 
 coe to Tyndrum, at first expands itself in desolate grandeur: after 
 
 passing Inverouran, it softens into romantic and pastoral beauty, 
 
 interspersed with scenes of the sublime ; and (on the approach to 
 
 Tyndrum) ennobled by that picturesque and majestic mountain, 
 
 the Perthshire Benmore. The little green before the Inn of Tyndrum 
 
 invited a stroll to the banks of a charming stream ; where the eye 
 
 and mind were filled with the majesty of Benmore rising directly 
 
 opposite in full view. A few clouds occasionally swept across his 
 
 iiuge dimensions, and gave his noble features a solemnity which 
 
 well became the guardian Genius of the wild. 
 
 Haunts like these have a divinity that bids us 
 
 l)y due degrees aspire 
 
 To lay our just hands on that goldiMi key 
 That opes the palace of eternity. — Comus. 
 
 Canto III. Stanza xlix. 
 
 From Tyndru 11, the road to ('a)lander continues highly interest- 
 ing. The beautiful predominates as far as Luib : at some distance 
 from which place, there is a wild but noble ravine leading down to 
 Loch-Earn- Head; and the ulterior route, through Balquhidder, 
 (in which parish are Benvoirlich and part of the ancient Caledonian 
 Forest) is romantic and lovely. Along the shore of Loch-Lubnaig, 
 in 1732, the unhappy Helen, Lady Grange, was dragged by order 
 of her execrable husband. Lord Grange, to that protracted impri- 
 sonment among the Hebrides, which (after slowly undermining her 
 reason) at length terminated her existence, at Idrigal in the Isle of 
 Skye. A.D. 1749. Lord Grange's motive to this cruelty, was 
 partly revenge on Lady Grange for having forced him to repair by 
 marriage the wrong of seducing her, and partly the fear of her 
 exposing his treasonable practices. Lord Grange himself died, 
 (A.D. 1754) in the utmost agonies of mind and body. 
 
 Loch-Lubnaig is about five miles long: its two reaches are 
 commanded at once from a station about the middle ; where the
 
 284 VOYAGE TO STAFFA : 
 
 load comes directly opposite to a superb precipice, shaggy with 
 wood, and called Craig-na-coheilg. A.fter leaving Loch-Lubnaig 
 behind, the traveller becomes imperceptibly involved in the roman- 
 tic nemorosities of the Pass of Ledi: the river Teith (Teath or 
 Taith) thundering on the right, among rocks at a great depth below. 
 
 Lubnaig's lake supplies the Teith. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the richness or the wild beauty of this defile ; 
 every crag and coppice of which might seem the chosen asylum of 
 peace and contemplation. 
 
 Such where the deep-transported mind may soar 
 
 Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door 
 
 Look in. Milton's Verses at a Vacation Exercise. 
 
 Canto III. Stanza li. 
 
 The situation of Stuart's Inn is very lovely ; commanding Ben- 
 vemie and the entrance to the Trosachs. These are regions 
 
 ' immortal made 
 
 With verses dipt in dew of Castaly. — Spenser. 
 
 Transmuted into classic ground by the minstrel who sung the Lady 
 of the Lake. 
 
 Few were the stragglers, following far. 
 That reached the lake of Vennachar. 
 
 But nearer was the copse-wood grey 
 That waved and wept on Loch-Achray, 
 And mingled with the pine-trees blue 
 On the bold cliffs of Benvenue. 
 
 The frequency of allusions to Sir Walter Scott will be accounted 
 for by considering how much of our route lay among scenes 
 
 By him immortalized in prose or rhyme. 
 
 We found the Trosachs a beautiful pass, hemmed in on each side 
 by rocks intermingled with fine wood, while on the left hand Ben- 
 venue rose up beyond the immediate barrier of the defile, and
 
 NOTES AND II.nuSTK AT IONS. 285 
 
 (exhibited liis lofty sides, rougli witli crags, and seamed l)y the 
 
 cliannels of many a winter's torrent. 
 
 High im the south, huge Benveiiue 
 
 Down to the lake in masses threw 
 
 Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled, 
 
 The fragments of an earlier world. 
 
 A wildering forest feathered o'er 
 
 His rained sides, and summits hoar, 
 
 While on the north, through middle air 
 
 Ben-An heaved high his forehead bare. 
 
 At Ambleside, in our way to Scotland, we had heard a circum- 
 stance connected with these faery haunts, related to us by the 
 person to whom it occurred. Roaming among the Trosachs in 
 quest of the picturesque, he was accosted by a stranger of athletic 
 form, but courteous manners, who ofi'ered to show him a curious 
 waterfall. Arriving at the spot, the stranger offered his hand to 
 support (or rather suspend) the tourist on the brink of a projection 
 over the abyss ; from which projection only a complete view of the 
 fall could be obtained. The offer was accepted with thanks, the 
 cataract was contemplated at leisure, and the parties separated with 
 mutual civilities. When the tourist, returning to his Inn, informed 
 mine host of this adventure, the answer was, " Thank heaven, sir, 
 that you are safe: for the man you describe must be Wandering 
 Willie, a confirmed and mischievous lunatic ; and it was a thousand 
 to one but he had pitched you into the chasm." 
 
 Canto III. Stanza Ixi. 
 
 A variety of miscellaneous walks convinced us that Edinburgh, 
 besides being a most beautiful, is also a most entertaining City. 
 The steep and narrow wynds, the spacious streets, the continual 
 variety of ground, and the picturesque combinations of buildings, 
 rocks, and hills, afford a never-ending stimulus to research, and a 
 never-ending succession of amusement. 
 
 The mail-coach road from Edinburgh to London (through Had- 
 ington, Dunbar, Berwick, &;c.) is rendered highly interesting Ijy its 
 long continued view of the German ocean. When we arrived near 
 St. Abb's Head, with Holy-Isle in full view, the day became over-
 
 286 SCOTLAND REVISITED : 
 
 cast, the wind raised a considerable swell, and the sea (sublime 
 even in its serenities) contracted a gloom of sullen and even 
 menacing grandeur; as if brooded upon by the Spirit of the Polar 
 storms. 
 
 Scotland Revisited. Canto I. Stanza, xxii. 
 
 A brisk and favourable breeze, springing up after sunset, had 
 raised a considerable sea before we reached the Isle of Man ; and 
 was also attended with heavy storms of rain. Whatever may be the 
 appearance of this Island in daylight, calm, and sunshine ; its 
 aspect under the dubious beam of a summer night, under the gloom 
 of cloud and tempest, was strongly impressed with the character of 
 romantic boldness. 
 
 Canto I. Stanza xxxvii. 
 
 On the beauty of Glasgow Cathedral it is unnecessary to enlarge : 
 such ample justice having been done to it in Mr. Rickman's admi- 
 rable Work on Gothic Architecture. (See the third Edition. Page 
 366). Of Mr. Rickman's work it is not too much to say, that 
 (like the Logierian system in harmony and musical composition) 
 it has introduced order, simplicity and clearness, where all before 
 was confusion, intricacy and obscurity. 
 
 Canto I. Stanza xliv. 
 
 As Windermere should be approached from Newby-Bridge, and 
 Ullswater from Pooley-Bridge, so should Loch-Lomond be entered 
 from the Leven ; because the mountain boundaries of the northern 
 end are thus kept full in view, The effect is very inferior if you 
 come from Loch-Katrine, take boat at the Mull of Inversnaid, and 
 then proceed down the Lake. Our own sail up Loch-Lomond was 
 obscured by violent storms of wind and rain ; and our view of the 
 noble scenery was in consequence greatly obstructed. The numerous 
 cascades were, however, in high beauty : and that bewitching one
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 287 
 
 at the Mull of Inversnaid, was pre-eminently so. The upper part of 
 the Lake, beyond Rob Hoy's cave, where the water becomes con- 
 tracted between steep and lofty hills, is peculiarly striking. Glen- 
 falloch, the actual head, is a spot of solitude and wild majesty, 
 which acts powerfully upon the imagination ; assisted by the legend 
 of Dalc-stone-brae, where the rock, and door in the face of it, 
 mark the place at which, in the days of persecution, men formerly 
 met to hear the voice of the preacher. In returning we landed at 
 Tarbet, a very fine situation, opposite to Benlomond; which, some- 
 times enveloped in clouds, and at other times partially discovered, 
 rose abruptly from the gloomy and ruffled waters, in a tempest- 
 portending duskiness of grandeur. 
 
 Canto I. Stanza Hi. 
 
 Here is the spot where but let every man speak for himself: 
 
 " Embarked on the bosom of Loch-Fine, Captain Dalgetty might 
 have admired one of the grandest scenes which nature affords. He 
 might have noticed the rival rivers, Aray and Shiray, which pay 
 tribute to the lake, each issuing from its own dark and wooded 
 retreat. He might have marked, on the soft and gentle slope that 
 ascends from the shores, the noble old Gothic castle, and its varied 
 outline, embattled walls, towers, and outer and inner courts, which, 
 so far as the picturesque is concerned, presented an aspect much 
 more striking than the present massive and uniform mansion. He 
 might have admired those dark woods, which for many a mile sur- 
 rounded this strong and princely dwelling ; and his eye might have 
 dwelt on the picturesque peak of Duniquoich, starting abruptly 
 from the lake, and raising its scathed brow into the mist of middle 
 sky, while a solitary watch-tower, perched on its top like an eagle's 
 nest, gave dignity to the scene by awakening a sense of possible 
 danger. All these, and every other accompaniment of this noble 
 scene, Captain Dalgetty might have marked, if he had been so 
 minded. But, to confess the truth, the gallant Captain, who had 
 eaten nothing since day-break, was chiefly interested by the smoke 
 which ascended from the castle chimneys, and the expectations
 
 288 
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED : 
 
 which this seemed to warrant, of his encountering an abundant stock 
 of piovant, as he was wont to call supplies of this nature." — Legend 
 of Montrose. 
 
 Canto II. Stanza xix. 
 
 The road from Inveraray to Oban, through Dalmally and Tay- 
 nuilt, is full of interest. At the commencement, the character of 
 the scenery (through the Park, and along the banks of the Aray) is 
 highly beautiful : it afterwards becomes wild and romantic, and at 
 last savagely grand ; Ben-Cruachan in front, and Loch-Awe below. 
 
 Dalmally is a spot of lovely seclusion, hemmed in by lofty hills : 
 the Church a neat structure, of octagonal form. Leaving Dalmally, 
 the road makes a circuit round an arm of Loch-Awe, and passes 
 under Ben-Cruachan, amid scenery little inferior to that of Glen- 
 croe. After this, passing Kilchurn- Castle (once the seat of the 
 Breadalbin family), it plunges into woods, the property of Lord 
 Breadalbin, comes to an opening with a fine view down the lake ; 
 and then, passing some exquisite cascades, enters a defile strongly 
 marked with rugged sublimity, and extending to where the river 
 Awe flows out of Loch-Awe to empty itself into Loch-Etive. Near 
 Taynuilt the river throws its tumultuous torrent into a wooded and 
 rocky hollow, of much picturesque beauty, beyond which the pros- 
 pects change again to stern grandeur as the road approaches Loch- 
 Etive, and passes Connal and DunstafFnage-Castle. The lofty 
 heights of Mull assume a very imposing appearance, under the 
 obscurity and gloom of approaching evening. 
 
 Canto II. Stanza xlvi. 
 
 They who ascend mountains must be prepared for the disappoint- 
 ments incidental to fog and storm. As it has been surmised that 
 Mr. Brydone wrote his celebrated description of the view from Mount 
 Etna without having been on the summit, I take this opportunity of 
 stating (what was told me by his companion, the late Mr. Glover, 
 son to the Author of Leonidas), that Mr. Brydone actually was on 
 the summit ; and that the circumstances of their ascent, the sprained
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 289 
 
 ancle, &c., are correctly given ; but that they were enveloped in cloud 
 and mibt, and could see nothing. 
 
 Sir Richard Hoare indeed informs us, tliat D'Orville's, and all 
 other descriptions which represent the prospect as cmhracing the 
 whole circumference of the horizon, are erroneous ; because there 
 is a point, quite inaccessible, which rises higher than the crater, 
 and consequently intercepts a segment of the circle. 
 
 Canto II. Stanza xlvii. 
 
 A little way from Fort-William, on the route to the Parallel 
 Roads of Glenroy, leave Inverlochy Castle on the left, and enter 
 upon a country desolate indeed, but dignified by fine views of Ben- 
 Nevis, with the snow hanging on his eastern precipices. Pass the 
 river Spean, and turn into the serenely pastoral vale of the river 
 Roy. At the Bridge of Roy Inn is a fine view of Innach-More 
 (not much inferior in height to Ben-Nevis, and like him carrying 
 snow on his eastern side). A walk of four miles up the very in- 
 teresting Vale of Glenroy, leads to a full view of the fine Glen at 
 its upper extremity, and of the three long-continued horizontal lines 
 of the Parallel Roads ; a scene which, from its solemn beauty, no 
 less than from its singularity, well rewards the pedestrian for his 
 trouble. The discovery by Captain Basil Hall, of a similar phamo- 
 menon among the mountains of South America, strengthens the 
 hypothesis that these curious tracks, which extend for some miles, 
 and so uniformly preserve their horizontality, have been the suc- 
 cessive margins of a gradually subsiding lake. 
 
 Canto T I. Stanza xlviii. 
 
 Loch-Lochy fills a deep, narrow, and romantic valley ; in which 
 the situation of Letter-finlach is peculiarly fine. While we took 
 our refreshment on the banks of the Lake, before the door of the 
 Inn, enjoying at once the charms of scenery and the purity of the 
 air, our Highland handmaid shewed herself not inscnsil)]t> to the 
 beauties of Nature ; for on our admiring the opposite bank of the 
 
 V
 
 290 SCOTLAND revisited: 
 
 Lake, where a bold and lofty hill, partly covered with brushwood, 
 partly furrowed by the torrents of winter, rose abruptly from the 
 water, at once adorning and darkening the Glen, she told us, 
 "There was no the brae like it in all Scotland, but itself." Pro- 
 ceeding hence, some beautiful cascades are seen on the right, and 
 the scenery continues fine all the way to Loch-Oich ; the banks of 
 which afford noble retrospects of the hills about Loch-Lochy. 
 
 Canto II. Stanza Iv. 
 
 The walk from Fort-Augustus to the General's Hut (fifteen 
 miles), will amply repay the pedestrian for his trouble. At the 
 commencement is a long and steep ascent, finely overlooking the 
 upper end of Loch-Ness. Descend next into the lovely vale of 
 Glendoe, and emerge from it to a very elevated plain, among barren 
 hills: in crossing which plain, leave a small Loch to the left, and 
 then another to the right, and mounting up to a still higher point, 
 at length look down upon a magnificent wild prospect of mountains, 
 lochs, and clouds. About three miles of reputed distance from the 
 General's Hut (so called from having been the temporary residence 
 of Marshal Wade, while superintending the Military Road), de- 
 scend among birch-copses and rocks into a scene of naked desolation, 
 conducting over a steep ascent into a bolder glen of rock and wood : 
 proceed hence, crossing another vale, and arrive at the Falls of the 
 river Foyers. Of these there are two : the upper one (which is 
 looked down upon from a bridge) is beautiful. The lower one (of 
 which a view is gained by scrambling down to a projecting point of 
 rock) is at once beautiful and grand. They are now, it is said, 
 making the access to this lower Fall more easy. At the General's 
 Hut is a fine view of Loch-Ness, with its northern shore of rock and 
 wood. To this succeed other delightful prospects of the Lake ; and 
 then a descent into a valley, with the stupendous rock of Inver- 
 farigag (wooded half way up) in front. Near Inverness the singular 
 hill called Tomnaheurich rises abruptly from the plain ; while Ben- 
 Wyviss, and the other hills of Ross, appear in the distance. The 
 excellent accommodations at the Caledonian Hotel, Inverness, dis-
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 291 
 
 pose the traveller to be liighly pleased with that cheerful town and 
 its very interesting environs. The walks by the river Ness, and to 
 the Kessock Ferry, are pleasant. 
 
 Canto III. Stanza xxxiv. 
 
 "And bicatlicd the presage-wish to die in victory's arms!" 
 
 The passage here alluded to, is too striking to be passed by without 
 quotation. Graham of Claveihouse (afterwards Viscount Dundee) 
 is speaking : — 
 
 " It is not the expiring pang that is^^wortli tliiukiiig of in an 
 event, that must happen one day, and may befal us on any given 
 moment — it is the memory which the soldier leaves behind him, 
 like the long train of light that follows the sunken sun — that is all 
 which is worth caring for, which distinguishes the death of the 
 brave or the ignoble. When I think of death, Mr. Morton, as a 
 thing worth thinking of, it is in the hope of pressing one day some 
 well-fought and hard-won field of battle, and dying with the shout 
 of victory in my ear; — that would be worth dying for, and more, it 
 would be worth having lived for." — Old Mortality. 
 
 Canto III. Stanza xxxvii. 
 
 There is no better describer than Gray ; nor any great stretch of 
 modesty in adopting his language, rather than that of my own 
 notes. — 
 
 " We ferried over the Tummel in order to get into INIarslial 
 Wade's road, which leads from Dunkeld to Inverness, and con- 
 tinued along it toward the north : the road is excellent, but dan- 
 gerous enough in conscience ; the river often running directly under 
 us, at the bottom of a precipice two hundred feet deep, sometimes 
 masked indeed by wood, that finds means to grow where I could 
 not stand, but very often quite naked, and without any defence ; in 
 such places we walked for miles together, partly for fuiir, and partly 
 to admire the beauty of the country, wliich the beauty of tlic
 
 292 
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED : 
 
 weather set off to the greatest advantage : as evening came on, we 
 approached the Pass of Killiecrankie, where, in the year 1745, the 
 Hessians, with their prince at their head, stopped short, and refused 
 to march a foot farther. 
 
 " Vestibulum ante ipsuin, primisque in faucibus Orci," 
 
 stands the solitary mansion of Mr. Robertson of Fascally ; close by 
 it rises a hill covered with oak, with grotesque masses of rock staring 
 from among their trunks, like the sullen countenances of Fingal and 
 all his family, frowning on the little mortals of modern days : from 
 between this hill and the adjacent mountains, pent in a narrow 
 channel, comes roaring out the river Tummel, and falls headlong 
 down, involved in white foam, which rises into a mist all round it : 
 but my paper is deficient, and I must say nothing of the Pass itself, 
 the black river Garry, the Blair of Athol, lilount Ben-y-Gloe, my 
 return by another road to Dunkeld, the Hermitage, the Stra-Bram, 
 and the Rumbling Brig : in short, since I saw the Alps, I have seen 
 nothing sublime till now." 
 
 The following is his approach to Dunkeld : — 
 
 " The ground now grew unequal ; the hills seemed to close in 
 upon us, till the road came to the brow of a steep descent, and (the 
 sun then setting) between two woods of oak we saw far below us 
 the river Tay come sweeping along, at the foot of a precipice at 
 least one hundred and fifty feet deep, clear as glass, full to the brim, 
 and very rapid in its course : it seemed to issue out of woods thick 
 and tall, that rose on either hand, and were overhung by broken 
 rocky crags, of vast height ; above them, to the west, the tops of 
 higher mountains appeared, on which the evening clouds reposed. 
 Down by the side of the river, under the thickest shades, is seated 
 the town of Dunkeld ; in the midst of it stands a ruined cathedral, 
 the towers and shell of the building still entire : a little beyond it, 
 a large house of the Duke of Athol, with its offices and gardens, 
 extends a mile beyond the town ; and as his grounds were inter- 
 rupted by the streets and roads, he has flung arches of communi- 
 cation across them, that add to the scenery of the place, which of
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 293 
 
 itself is built of good white stone, and handsomely slated, so thai 
 no one would take it for a Scotch town till they come into it." 
 
 Castle of Kinfaims. Canto III. Page 245. 
 
 Ihe circumstance here alluded to, really occurred. While we 
 were looking at the Castle, we were startled by a very sudden and 
 loud clap of thunder. 
 
 Canto III. Stanza xlvii. 
 
 Proceeding from Dunblane toward Stirling, pass Kippin-Ross, 
 the seat of Mr. Stirling ; and soon after have a noble view of the 
 Carse of Stirling, a fine plain with three very bold eminences in it : 
 of which the centre one is that which bears the city and castle of 
 Stirling. The windings of the Forth are very extraordinary ; but 
 the attention of a spectator from the castle is much more attracted 
 by the stately display of Highland hills in the distance. The 
 palace of the Earls of Mar (now a regimental hospital) possesses 
 considerable interest; and in the Palace portion of the Castle are 
 some ornaments of curious character. The three following extracts, 
 relative to this city, are from Rickman's masterly work on Gothic 
 Architecture: — 
 
 " The Castles of Dunbarton, Edinburgh, and Stirling, all deserve 
 attention, not only from their situation, but from the ancient por- 
 tions they contain ; in the two first these are small, but at Stirling 
 there are portions nearly, if not quite, as curious as Roslin 
 Chapel. 
 
 " At Stirling an ancient building, now the Military Hospital, 
 and the remains of iNIar's Work, are curious, and deserve exami- 
 nation. 
 
 " Stirling Church is a large edifice, with a massy tower of de- 
 corated date, at the west end ; the nave is low, with round piers, 
 and moulded arches pointed ; some good decorated windows, and a 
 small clerestory, with round-headed windows. The Chancel is 
 lofty, witii fine piers and arches ; the east end octagon, with a 
 curious ancient stone ceiling ; the windows modernised and patched ;
 
 294 
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED : 
 
 the buttresses bold, and ornamented with niches. This part seems 
 of later date than the nave." 
 
 Canto III. Stanza Ivii. 
 
 In the view of Old Edinburgh from the Calton-Hill, the most 
 
 impressive object is the Palace of Holyrood. Who can look upon 
 
 it without being haunted by visions of mingled truth and fiction! 
 
 The interview of Roland Grasme with the Regent Murray crosses 
 
 the mental eye ; succeeded by the sterner realities of history ; the 
 
 transient splendour of a beautiful and accomplished Queen, so 
 
 speedily followed by adversity and sorrow, captivity and death. The 
 
 family of Stuart (like that of Priam) might well be said to include 
 
 in its own tragic annals, an epitome of all human calamity. Just 
 
 (though quaint and melancholy) are the reflections of John Bochas, 
 
 as translated by Lydgate (L'Envoy to Book i. Chapter xii.). 
 
 "The unsure gladnes, the joye transitory. 
 The unstable surenes, tlie transmutatios. 
 The clowdy brightnes, the false eclipsed glory 
 Of earthly prynces whiche have possessions. 
 Monarchies and dominacions 
 Their sodayne chaunge declareth to us all 
 Their swete suger is meynt with bitter gall. 
 
 " This blynde goddesse in her consistory 
 With her pleasaunce niedleth discensions: 
 After triuniphes, conquest, and victory, 
 Reveth from kynges their scepters and crowns, 
 Troubleth the people with false rebellions, 
 Se these dukes which from the whele be fall 
 All worldly suger is meynt with bytter gall. 
 
 "This tragedy maketh memory 
 
 Of dukes twayne, and of their hye renounes, 
 
 And of their love write a great history. 
 
 And how they conquered divers regions, 
 
 Governed cities, countreyes, and also townes, 
 
 Tyll fortune their prowes did appall. 
 
 To shew their suger was meint wi' bitter gal. 
 
 " Prynces, pryncesses, se how deceptory 
 Ben all these worldly revolutions; 
 And how fortune in her reclinatory 
 With her treacle tempreth false poysons. 
 So marvellous ben her confections. 
 Of frowardnes she wyll, what so befall. 
 Ever with her suger of custome temper gall." 
 
 In the above extract I have endeavoured to preserve the peculi- 
 arity and the inconstancy of the spelling.
 
 NOTES AND IM.USTKATIONS. 
 
 Canto III. Stanza Iviii. 
 
 295 
 
 Mr. Barry's Establishment (Priiice's-street, Edinburgh) is ar- 
 ranged on a plan of even luxuriant comfort: and indeed our accom- 
 modations in Scotland were almost invariably excellent. In 
 gratitude for mucli kind treatment, and in hope of rendering an 
 acceptable service to future travellers, I subjoin a list of those Inns 
 which circumstances best enabled us to appreciate. 
 
 Tontine Inn, Greenock. — Very commodious and civil. 
 
 George Hotel, St. George's Square, Glasgow. — The utmost atten- 
 tion and accommodation. 
 
 Inn at Tarbet. — Much crowded; but as comfortable as could be 
 expected. 
 
 Inn at Cairndow. — Clean and civil. 
 
 George Inn, Inveraray. — Very good. 
 
 Inn at Dalmally. — Clean and civil. 
 
 Mrs. Cuthbertson'a Lodgings, Tobermorie. — Uniform attention and 
 kindness. 
 
 Caledonian Hotel, Fort-William. — Very comfortable. 
 
 Inn at Ballachulish (northern side of the Locli). — ^\'orthy of its 
 most lovely situation. 
 
 Bridge of Roy Inn (near the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy). — Clean 
 and civil. 
 
 Letter-Finlach, on the banks of Loch-Lochy. — A smoky hut: but 
 the butter, goat's-milk cheese, oaten bread, spring water, and 
 whiskey, most excellent. 
 
 Caledonian Hotel, Inverness. — Eminently good. 
 
 Aviemore, two stages from Inverness, on Perth road. — Here we 
 breakfasted only, but sumptuously. 
 
 George Inn, Perth. — Excellent.
 
 296 
 
 SCOTLAND REVISITED. 
 
 Inn at Blackford, second stage from Perth, on Stirling road.— 
 Breakfasted only, but most sumptuously. 
 
 Barry's Hotel, Prince's-street, Edinburgh. — Pre-eminently good. 
 
 As a route from Glasgow to Stafta, I should recommend pro- 
 ceeding to Oban by land, and there taking the Steam-boat. Loch- 
 Lomond, the journey from Tarbet to Inveraray, and that from 
 Inveraray by Dalmally and Taynuilt to Oban, will keep the tourist 
 on a constant stretch of admiration. 
 
 From Fort-William you may return by Ballachulish, Glencoe, 
 Tyndrum, Luib, Loch-Earne, and Loch-Lubnaig, to Callander; 
 and thence by the Trosachs, Lech-Katrine, Loch-Lomond, and 
 Dunbarton to Glas •>%■ : a route of much beauty and sublimity. 
 
 But, as it is well worth while to visit Inverness, the further ques- 
 tion arises, how to return from Inverness to the southward. The 
 Perth road is here most eligible, because it leads through the 
 Grampians, in a magnificent succession of beauty and grandeur. 
 As witness — Aviemore, Dalwhinie, Dalnaspidel, Dalnacardoch, 
 Blair- Athol, Killiecrankie, Moulinarn, and Dunkeld, — to say 
 nothing of the comfortable repose in the stately opulence of 
 Perth. 
 
 From Perth the traveller may pursue his way with much interest 
 and pleasure, either by Stirling to the beautiful city of Glasgow, 
 or by Kinross and Loch-Leven to the metropolitan splendour of 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 THE END.
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 FOXLEY, NEAR HEREFORD. 
 
 SEAT OF SIR UVEDALE PRICE.* 
 
 Here, Nature, ;ill thy charms assemble; here 
 Unfold thy treasures to the master eye 
 Of him whose glance, deep-searching and severe, 
 Discountenanced the bald simplicity 
 
 That would usurp thine empire. Heavenward fly, 
 Ye birds — that borrow music from the sphere 
 Of angels — and trill forth your descant clear 
 In honour to the Sage who dared *lefy , . 
 
 The tyranny of custom, and restore 
 
 The music and tlie rhythm of Classic song. 
 And what if sloth or prejudice delay 
 
 The consummation ? wisdom, and the lore 
 Of Truth, shall like the sun career along. 
 Scatter the niglit, and flame unclouded day. 
 
 * Sir Uvedale Price has since (at an advanced age) paid the 
 debt of Nature. His " Observations on the IModern Pronunciation 
 of the Greek and Latin Languages," will, along with his "Remarks 
 on the Pictures(|ue,'' form a lasting memorial of his taste, research, 
 and literary ardour.
 
 TO THE REV. G. S. FABER.* 
 
 Friend of my heart ! if neither pomp nor power 
 Reward thy toil, be thine the nobler gain 
 By fact and reason to have foiled the vain 
 Ostent of Rome ; and sanctified the bower 
 
 Of lettered peace with thoughts that upward tower. 
 With oracles that to the Sceptic train 
 Unfold Truth's altar, and Religion's fane. 
 Through health, through sickness, through the last 
 dread hour. 
 
 Than glory, gold, or empire, happier thou 
 
 In gifts untainted by the world's crude kaven ; 
 Faith, Hope, and Charity's celestial ray> 
 
 The tranquil spirit, and unclouded brow. 
 The pilgrimage on holy ground by day. 
 The night imparadised in dreams of Heaveai. 
 
 * With a particular reference to his incomparable Works, " The 
 Difficulties of Infidelity," and " The Difficulties of Romanism."
 
 BREMHILL. 
 
 RESIDENCE OF THE REV. W. L. BOWLES. ' 
 
 Here let me muse, and listen to the strain 
 
 That through tlie soul descending,* like the dew 
 
 On Hermon, the lost verdure to renew 
 
 Of withered hope, hath charmed away the train 
 
 Of indolent regret and wishes vain. 
 
 And bodied forth meteorous shapes to view, 
 Of Saxon eld,f and mountains of Peru, t 
 And visional y mourners on the plain 
 
 Of wild Damnonium; § till the loftier song 
 In harmony of Paradise resound. 
 Instinct with utterance from the mystic Seven 
 
 Before the Throne ; and lead the village throng || 
 In peace and innocence o'er holy ground 
 Of Calvary, to the Sabhath bliss of Heaven. 
 
 * Hope. An Allegorical Vision. 
 t Grave of the Last Saxon. 
 t The Missionary. 
 
 § Ellen Gray, or the MaiJ of Cornwall. 
 
 II The little Villager's Verse-Book. The noblest end of Poetry- 
 is, to inspire Devotion. — Sic itur ad astra.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PllINTED By SAMUEL MANNINO AND CO. 
 LONDON-HOUSE YARD, ST. PAUL's.
 
 THREE DAYS AT KILLARNEY 
 
 \\ I III 
 
 O T H 1- |{ J^ u E M S. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN. i{i:f,s. oinii:, ijiu)WN, and 
 
 (iRMMN. 
 1828.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 prilNTF.D BY SAMUEL MANN'ING AND CO. 
 LONDON-HOUSE YAItD, SI. J'AUl's.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A FEW words will convey all that appears 
 necessary to be observed relative to the following 
 Poems. 
 
 Three days spent at Killarney in the summer 
 of 1827, gave rise to the Poem so called in this 
 Volume: in which a separate Canto is allotted 
 to the em])loyments of each day. The scenery 
 and the incidents are delineated correctly as they 
 occurred ; the legends and the superstitions are 
 those of the place and country ; and the sketches 
 of national and individual character are given 
 with studious fidelity. 
 
 To the Earl of Ken mare the most grateful 
 acknowledgments are due from every tourist, for 
 the facilities which liis admirable regulations afl'ord
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 to the visitors of Kiliarney : and the Author feels 
 himself under great obligation for the politeness 
 which he experienced, and the valuable informa- 
 tion respecting the scenery and phenomena of 
 the Shannon, which he received, during the stag- 
 hunt, from the Knight of Glynn. 
 
 Though ' Cambuscan' is but a fragment, yet the 
 time will not perhaps be thought totally misap- 
 plied, which has been occupied in an endeavour 
 to render the public more familiar with a tale 
 admired by Spencer and by Milton. The friendly 
 interest with which Lord Churchill perused 
 this attempt in manuscript, is one of the innu- 
 merable kindnesses conferred by him upon the 
 Author, during a period of four and twenty years. 
 
 With regard to the ' Elias Hydrochous ;' nothing 
 beyond a hint from the title has been borrowed 
 from the Milton manuscript, preserved in the 
 library of Trinity College, Cambridge ; and 
 called by Bishop Mansel, the Palladium of the 
 College. 
 
 Oiciioii, 
 
 Xenr Maiihio'.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 KILLARNEY:- ''^''^' 
 
 Day 1st. . . ■ . . . I 
 
 Day 2nd. . . . . . 29 
 
 l^ay3rd. 59 
 
 CAMBUSCAN; or, The Scji!ire's Tai.e : modernised 
 
 from Chaucer .... 93 
 
 KLIAS HVDROCHOUS; a Sacked Drama . -. 125
 
 KTIJ.ARNEY 
 
 FIRST DAY
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 DAY FIRST. 
 
 I. 
 
 Where Erin ramparts out the western deep 
 With Kerry's mountain reahn and rocky shore, 
 Dismay and solitude their vi<^il keep, 
 'Mid darkness, hurricane, and thunder's roar. 
 In vision round them throng the days of yore. 
 Departed saints and heroes they hehold, 
 And shu(Uler at traditionary lore, 
 By unimaginahle heralds told, 
 Who deeds ol' other years and other worlds unfold. 
 
 I B
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 II. 
 
 Such the stern mood of thunder and of night. 
 Where Brandon Hill frowns awful on Tralee, 
 Or Kerry Head uprears his cloudy height. 
 And in defiance breasts the raging sea. 
 But atmospheres serene have charms for me. 
 And daylight sparkling on the Emerald Isle, 
 Where Nature in her bounty wantons free. 
 Till all Elysium springing at her smile. 
 O'er cliff, o'er mead, o'er dell the lengthened march 
 beguile. 
 
 III. 
 
 Awake, young pilgrim, mark, how paints the dawn 
 With varied hues Killarney's fairy reign. 
 Where castellated rock and abbeyed lawn, 
 And island groves adorn the liquid plain ; 
 While margining the triple lake's domain, 
 Far as the southward gazer can descry. 
 Forests and towering steeps in far-drawn train 
 Mingle their vastness with the clouds on high. 
 Like steps by which the soul ascends into the sky.
 
 KILLARNEV. 3 
 
 IV. 
 
 What shade, what coolness, in the embowering wood. 
 
 Around Bellevue, beneath the templed brow 
 
 Of Aghadoe ; where ages long hath stood 
 
 The round - tower's mystery («). Mark the ruddy 
 
 glow 
 Of youth and age, in never ending flow, 
 Tiiat to tlie eventful contest wend their way. 
 Where fate, and judges of the field, must shew 
 If England or Hibernia win the day : 
 Sure prelude to carouse, to song, debate and Ihiy. 
 
 They start, they fly, they come CO — the course is 
 
 done : 
 The chonjs of wild triumpli rides tlie air 
 fa uproar : the Milesian steed liath won ; 
 And even the loser hath a heart to share 
 Tliat universal joy ; — but, O, beware 
 The witchery of tip- turf — tlie mirth it brings 
 Is harbinger to ruin and despair, 
 Bears off estate and fame on Iiarpy wings, 
 And like an a(hler bites, anil like a scorpion stings. 
 
 B 2
 
 KILLAHNFA. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Escaped from such Charybdis, by the bridge 
 Of Scarvagh-Killin speed we to the stream 
 Of Lein, while gathering storms from Toomies' ridge 
 Roll downward (murky as the night-mare's dream) 
 With here and there a brief and doubtful gleam. • 
 Even so unlooked-for sorrows oft deface 
 The morn of youth, and dim its orient beam ; 
 For not on earth hath man his resting-place ; 
 Where wanderers are we all, and all must run the race, 
 
 VII. 
 
 Through time anti tieath's dominion, to the close 
 Of nature, wlien the trumpet calls to doom. 
 But much awry our speculation goes 
 If present need we miss : the tempest's womb 
 Is bursting on the mountains, and the gloom 
 Dissolves in smoking deluges around. 
 That heaven and earth in one vast night entomb : 
 And cleft of rock, or cavern under ground. 
 Must be our shelter now, if shelter may be found.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 VITI. 
 
 Thus halting, look to where Macarthy More, 
 With arm unconquerable, upheld his reign. 
 And welcoming the battle's fierce uproar. 
 Stood like a lonely island of the main, 
 Whose adamantine boundaries disdain 
 The billow and the blast. For never quailed 
 The heart of Erin ; never shall a train 
 Of gallant sons be wanting, robed or mailed, 
 To grace her in repose, or guard her if assailed. 
 
 IX. 
 
 O, my loved Erin! couldst tliou brook the curb 
 Of order and of law, how blest wert thou : 
 For then should no intestine broil disturb 
 Thy peace ; nor vain repining cloud thy brow. 
 Theirs the reproach and guilt w ho better know, 
 Yet false alarums ring to party rage ; 
 And bid thee with uiiliallowed ardour glow. 
 Sully with deeds of blood thine history's page. 
 And for imagined wrongs eternal wnrfnrc wage.
 
 G KILLARNEY. 
 
 X. 
 
 The sun returns ; haste on, my friend ; behold, 
 Wliere yawns Dunlow's abyss the crags between. 
 Well may the bosom heave, the blood run cold. 
 And the knee tremble. 'Mid this gulf hath been 
 The hand, the visitation of the Unseen, , 
 
 In majesty of horror : — list ! — no sound ; 
 Look up — no life, no vestiges of green. 
 Solitude, desolation all around. 
 And cloud-capt peaks tliat gird the unfathomable 
 profound. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Yet terror call it not, but stern delight. 
 To gaze upon such chaos : while the mind 
 Apart from her inthralling clay takes flight. 
 In adoration soaring unconfined. 
 What error theirs, to happiness how blind. 
 Who measure all by sense, reserve no room 
 Within the heart for thought of loftier kind. 
 But slumber in forgetfulness and gloom. 
 Till bursts upon their heads the thunder-peal of doom.
 
 KILLARXEY. 
 
 XII. 
 
 A wilderness like this, the Tishbite seer 
 Explored in Horeb, when Jehovah sent. 
 Before his mercy-seat, the dread career 
 Of whirlwind, that the rocks and mountains rent. 
 Then quivered earth, then blazed the firmament : 
 But wind, nor fire, nor earthquake was the shrine 
 That veiled the glory of the Omnipotent. 
 For, hark ! the still small voice, mysterious sign 
 Of God within the breast, and colloquy divine. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Genius of Contemplation ! not in scorn 
 Do we adventure, nor with breath profane. 
 To pour a soul into the mellow horn. 
 And wake the marvels of thy lonely reign. 
 A voice, we know not whence, repeats the strain ; 
 A thousand tongues, invisible, reply 
 In mimic note again, and yet again ; 
 Till faint in distance the sweet echoes die, 
 Like reascending choirs of angels t" the sky.
 
 8 
 
 KlLLARi\EY. 
 
 XI V^. 
 
 They are but sounds ; yet not in vain we lend 
 To sounds so worthy paradise an ear : 
 We catch their inspiration, and ascend 
 In fantasy's immeasurable career. 
 Beyond the lunar ball and starry sphere. 
 To where the cherubim and seraphim 
 Hold jubilee throughout the eternal year, > 
 In choral ecstasies ol' praise to Him 
 Before whose sight the heavens and all their hosts are 
 dim. 
 
 XV. 
 
 O might it be for ever thus ! — too soon 
 The bond of sense corporeal checks our flight 
 And drags us down, to climb, in blaze of noon. 
 The vast abrupt of wonder and affright. 
 By lake, by stream, or buried under height 
 Of rocks that nod, impending to their fall. 
 Unmingled good is not for mortal wight : 
 Toil, pain, vicissitude, must come to all 
 Who on terrestrial orb, poor feeble emmets crawl.
 
 KILLAHNF.V 
 
 X\I. 
 
 And is there not a cause ? — Think how began 
 The world's first pilgrimage of youth and joy, 
 When frailty-free arose imperial man, 
 God's image, heir of peace without alloy. 
 Alas ! that sin should enter, and annoy 
 The bliss of Eden, troubling the serene, 
 With hopes that cheat, and jdeasures that destrtiv. 
 Sithence hard task for dicij)line hath been. 
 From transitory toys the unwilling soul to wean. 
 
 XVll. 
 
 Clambering aloft, we l>ound, we walk, we creep. 
 Mile after mile, from rocky stair to stair ; 
 Till now advancing toward the topmost steep, 
 And elevate beyond the reach of care. 
 Heaven's vestibule we tread. Yet signs there are 
 Even here of habitation : smoke-wreaths blue, 
 Beneath yon rock denote some uncouth lair ; 
 Perchance of one who wealth and grandeur knew. 
 Yet voluntary thence to lioly rest withdrew.
 
 ^0 KILLARNEY.- 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Ah, no ! a .sorceress here (so rumour tells) 
 Whose alchemies the bearded grain transmute. 
 In limbec and retort concocts the spells. 
 That travesty the human to the brute : 
 Yet such the gust of interdicted fruit. 
 That though her victims dwindle and wax pale. 
 Day after day, her threshold they salute. 
 To quaff her mountain-dew's (") insidious bale. 
 Whereof, who deeply drinks, the draught shall sorely 
 wail. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 For think not this the pearly moisture cool, 
 Ambrosial, dropping from the wheels of morn : 
 It is a wicked dew, that will befool 
 And send thee forth, of strength and reason shorn, 
 A dolt, an ape, the laughing-stock of scorn ! 
 Be not enamoured of contempt and blame. 
 Pluck not the rose that bears so sharp a thorn ; 
 Touch not — or if thou hast, thy grasp reclaim. 
 Nor thus for poison truck, health, competence and fame.
 
 KILLAUNF.V. H 
 
 XX. 
 
 She comes — in semblance of a withered crone, 
 Goblet in luuul. " Tired stranger, drink," she cries ; 
 " Unhap{)y he, who on himself alone, 
 " Oblivious of elixii-'s aid, relies :" 
 But heed her not ; be temperate, and be wise ; 
 Yet courteous in thy wisdom, lightly taste : 
 A sparing use exhilarates, fortifies. 
 And dancing- in the veins, repairs the waste 
 Of stumble, stride, and leap, strained sinew, heiit 
 and ha; te. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 At length, upon the summit ridge Ave stand, 
 Whence vision strains to search the depth below : 
 Before, behind us, and on either liiiiul. 
 Are valley, tarn and cliff — the torrent's flow — 
 And mountains over-arched with plu\ ial liow. 
 These are the temple : here, to swell the song 
 Of Nature, thunders roar and tempests blow. 
 Till from mortality's self-blindid throng 
 The summoned spirit soar, and heaven-ward sail along.
 
 12 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 " Good is it to be here;" the AjDostle cried. 
 Who on the mount Messiah's glory saw : 
 And good it were that we too should abide 
 Sequestered thus, if in religious awe. 
 We could from guilt as from the world withdraw. 
 No duty shunned, no sacrifice unpaid 
 To social good, to Gospel, or to Law. 
 But flowers of amaranth spring not in the shade. 
 And Faith, Hope, Charity, are but a vain parade 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 In him, whose sour abstraction to the cell 
 Of malcontent misanthropy retires. 
 Forgetting and forgotten, there to dwell, 
 Cumbering the ground. Far other thought inspires 
 High heaven, far other holocaust desires ; 
 And the prime record of Redem})tion's plan 
 Gave oracle what service he requires : 
 For thus in Bethlehem fields the hymn began — 
 " Glory to God on high, good-will and peace to man!"
 
 KILLARXKY. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 13 
 
 Descend we to the world again — a fall. 
 Precipitate ; save here and there between, 
 A marshy ledge, besprent with rushes tall, 
 Gave change of peril. Frequent might be seen 
 The myrtle of the bog, whose foliage green 
 Steams on the grasp a cloud of fragrance rare : 
 So virtue when oj)prest hath ever been 
 In sight of heaven, the more ap{)roved and fair ; 
 A balsam beyond price, a pearl a))Ove compare. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Our boat was ready on the wild lake's shore, 
 ^ Manned with a courteous and a gallant crew : 
 Young Leary, skilful at the feathering oar. 
 And Darby Connor, trowsered spruce in blue ; 
 The heart into the sinews Roberts threw. 
 And Tehan stoutly tugged the boat along. 
 Though on his forehead time .some furrows drew. 
 Cheered with the bugle, repartee and song, 
 Together all they pulled, a lengthened stroke and 
 stronsf.
 
 14 
 
 KTLLARNEV. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Safely we steered with Fleming at the helm : 
 Foul shame it were, had Fleming past unsung, 
 The pride, the phoenix of Killarney's realm, 
 Cool, temperate, watchful ; on whose lips, though 
 
 young. 
 Authority, and mingled kindness, hung. 
 Connal our minstrel was, a peerless guide. 
 Though law's rough saddle once his withers wrung 
 For hasty speech : — can ever good betide. 
 When passion and poteen in reason's room preside ? 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 What amplitude of mountains circling round, 
 How sleeps the lake beneath yon rocky wall ! 
 Speak not ; nor breathe — let no unhallowed sound 
 The consecrated solitude appal : 
 For what though every where and over all 
 Omnific presence rule, unheard, unseen ? — 
 A sterner voice and a diviner call. 
 In crag and wilderness hath ever been ; 
 Rebuking the gay stir of vanities terrene.
 
 KILLARNEY. 15 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Condensed around the upland of the Boar, ('/) ■ 
 The vapours blacken, and the winds pipe loud : . 
 And shagged with storm, 'mid elemental roar. 
 The mountain, like a giant in his shroud. 
 Scowls through the veil of darkness and of cloud. 
 Poor mortal! wilt thou dream of pomp and power — 
 Has glory chai-ms ? are earth and ashes proud P 
 Look round thee, shrink from the wide-wasting 
 shower ; 
 And own thyself at most, the pageant of an hour. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Along the current, that meandering steals 
 Into the lake of Lein, we wound our way 
 Through grim defile, to where the eagle wheels 
 Round the rock-cradled mansion of his sway. 
 Or sun-ward culminates. In elfin play 
 The many-throated edioes there repeat. 
 From east and west, from high and low, the lay ; 
 Swell in advance, or languish in retreat : 
 Sweet beyond art, beyond imagination sweet.
 
 16 
 
 KILLAIVNEY 
 
 XXX. 
 
 But if a Ijold adventurer provoke 
 The paterero's thunderbolt of sound. 
 It flames — it blasts; — recoiling' from the stroke, 
 Earth reels — the aerial ridg-e, the chasm profound, 
 liOng peal of dread artillery rebound. 
 Turk calls on Mangerton ; and o'er the height 
 Of Cromagloun the battle-roar flies round. 
 Recedes, returns, redoubles left and right, 
 And all things are confusion, uproar, and affright. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Scared by the deafening turbulence, we fled ; 
 The demons of the wild, with mop and moe, 
 And hideous hubbub, ScofTmg at our dread. 
 And hanging on our rear. At length the foe, 
 Relenting into silence, let us go ; 
 Nor dragged us backward to their goblin den. 
 In that deep world of wonder and of woe ; 
 Where once immured in cavern or in fen. 
 We nevermore had known sun, moon, or face of men.
 
 KILLARNEY. 17 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Beneath the bridge, and by the 2)leasant coast 
 Of Dinas isle, the rapids bore us down ; 
 The while our navigators made their boast 
 Of Boatman's-Hall, and fair Killarney town ; 
 And how, amid the pendent groves that crown 
 Turk's northern side, the giants dwelt of old ; 
 And how strange misadventure foiled the clown, 
 Who rashly dived to that subaqueous hold, 
 Where snarls the spectre hound to guard the crocks 
 of gold. 
 
 XXXTTI. 
 
 But now, without dimension, u illiout form, 
 A dark confusion overspread the day ; 
 Conglomeration huge of cloud and storm, 
 That on us pounced, like leopard on his prey. 
 And like a debtor dunned we scoured away- 
 Yet, sudden tli(>UL;li the flurry, fierce its power. 
 The timely refuge of a sheltered l)ay 
 Glena bestowed ; where in umbrageous bower 
 Securely we contemned tlie pelting of the shower. 
 
 c
 
 18 KILLARNFA', 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Looking- to where Lough Lein's thick-clustering isles 
 In labyrinth of loveliness are si)read. 
 We little dreamed of fortune's wanton wiles. 
 Or diadem impending o'er our head. 
 Such the career of life : so are we led, 
 Unknowing wherefore, when, or whither bound, 
 On what new errand, what new clime to tread. 
 In truth and virtue certainty is found ; 
 All mention of it else were but an empty sound. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Among our company was one, whose name 
 Maternal marked him of a lineage rare. 
 Erst in lerna, of toparchal fame, 
 W^hose antique appellation to declare 
 Orthography and verse at variance are ; 
 Though once (unless tradition fable be) 
 They conquered from Killarney to Kenmare : 
 Whence vests in him, from that high pedigree. 
 Of six-and-thirty isles, the principality.
 
 KILLARNEY. 19 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 But what avail us arable or down, 
 Till on them drop the fatness of the shower ? 
 Or toil and talent, till occasion crown 
 Their energ-ies, and fortune grant the dower ? 
 The ascendant must be waited, and the hour. 
 Ere astrolabe detect the favouring siirn ; 
 And even of genealogy and power. 
 What deem we, till their bounties warm and shine P 
 Mere pearls within the shell, mere diamonds in the 
 mine : 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Such thought revolving, thus the prince began. 
 Strangers of England ! whose far-searching mind 
 Hath sent you to survey the modes of man. 
 What passions prompt him, and what sanctions bind 
 In these rude wilds — reception shall ye find. 
 Such as the wanderer and the guest may crave: 
 For we avouch, and ever have opined, 
 That honour is tlie birth-right ftf the brave, 
 And gifts distinguish best the sovereign from the slave! 
 
 c 2
 
 20 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Ye both are welcome, and ye both employ 
 Alike our care : yet let not age think blame. 
 If youth (for youth has longer to enjoy) 
 Be chosen to taste our bounty, and proclaim 
 To the four winds our hospitable fame. 
 An isle of yonder archipelago 
 His sceptre shall receive, and bear his name : 
 That we and all our ancestors may show 
 How well to win allies, and grace desert we know. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 He added not : and as his words had end. 
 The brightening aether gave auspicious sign ; 
 And the young chief-elect prepared to bend 
 His cares on royalty, and how to shine 
 The founder of a long imperial line. 
 Straight we embarked ; while the subsiding breeze. 
 The emerging sun, the temperature benign. 
 Foreboded quiet rule, unbroken ease; 
 Invaders none without, within no rapparees.
 
 KILLAKNEY. 21 
 
 XL. 
 
 The destined appanage (like modest worth) 
 Was little known; untilled as yet and bare. 
 Save where the red-stemmed arbutus hung forth. 
 Fruitage and flower at once, adorning fair 
 Each limestone crevice. How shall art compare 
 Her fading hues to that perennial green ! 
 As well might vice and ignorance hope to share 
 With wisdom in the happiness serene. 
 That converse holds in heaven, and looks to things 
 unseen. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Anon we landed ; and the unconscious isle 
 Received its future lord, and took his name 
 With ceremonial given and mingled stile 
 Of Erse and Latian tongue, as well became 
 Killarney's lettered sept, and classic fame. 
 Then was libation made : and three times three. 
 The cheers of loyalty and loud acclame. 
 Taught lake and mountain to re})eat with glee, 
 Prosperity and peace to that new dynasty !
 
 22 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 The investiture, in record duly penned, 
 That night the donor's coronal must grace ; 
 And each a twig of arbutus must bend. 
 And on his brow the verdant chaplet place. 
 In reverence and memorial. Erin's race 
 With fanciful fond pastime thus recal. 
 Of domination past each fleeting trace. 
 That in secluded walk, or crowded hall. 
 May soothe their solitude, or glad their carnival. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 A lofty race they are, of kindred soul 
 To the hot sun ; yet listening in delight. 
 And homage, to persuasion's mild control : 
 But he who thwarts them, or invades their right. 
 Had better beard a lion in his might. 
 Strong as the bison, agile as the roe. 
 Prompt in the gibe, and prompter in the fight; 
 To benefit a friend, or quell a foe. 
 Through pain, toil, peril, fire, and water will they go.
 
 KILI.ARN'EY. 23 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 The day declines : a lengthening dusk is thrown 
 Along the lake, on castle, rock, and glade. 
 Saddening the hue of Rabbit Island brown. 
 And Inisfallen's wilderness of shade; 
 And where the truant imp, the frolic blade. 
 Whom 'Paddy Blake' the men of Kerry call. 
 Lurks by the tower of Ross in ambuscade. 
 Mocks insttument of speech, song, laughter, brawl. 
 Gives audience day and night, and challenges from all 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Accepts ; and, after grave deliberate ))ause, 
 Each inarticulate or articulate sound 
 Rehearses, note by note, or clause by clause ; 
 And laughs to hear philosophy profound 
 The causes of his merriment expound. 
 Yet is he but an atom of the chain. 
 In which the circling elements arc bound 
 By Him whose fiat framed, whose hands sustain 
 Earth and the firmament, and multitudinous main.
 
 24 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 Our voyage done, awhile upon the strand 
 In meditation mark we the serene 
 Of soft religious twilight, mantling land 
 And water, the gray cliff, the forest green. 
 In melancholy and gloom, till all between 
 Be' mingled with the horizon towering high. 
 Save (wliere the lake's dark windings intervene) 
 In rude inverted grandeur we espy 
 The solemn mountain-wall reflected to the sky. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Meantime, in majesty from pole to pole 
 Progressing, the magnificence of night 
 Illumines one by one, and bids to roll 
 From orient to the west, the infinite 
 Of stellar fires. So, when all earth's delight 
 Is darkened and withdrawn. Faith lends her wing. 
 New worlds, new paradises bless the sight. 
 And angel hierarchies are heard to sing. 
 Where lamps in emblem burn before the Eternal King.
 
 KILLARNEY. 25 
 
 XLVIIL 
 
 Nor angels only ; every orb a voice 
 Re-echoes : ocean, air, and the dry ground. 
 The sun and moon, the day and night rejoice ; 
 Wind, storm, and time, and seasons in their round 
 Fulfil his bidding, and his praise resound. 
 And if, beneath the shadow of death, where pine 
 Sorrow and sin, if thus, even there, be found 
 A glim})se, an image of the bliss divine ; 
 If through mortality's thick cloud such radiance shine. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 AVhat then shall be the glory when tlie alloy 
 Of sense and ajjpetite, of guilt and fear. 
 At once dissolving into life and joy. 
 Lets in the vision of the empyreal sphere. 
 The blaze of heaven's irrevoluble year ? 
 Such on the banks of Jordan was the flight 
 Of fiery steeds and chariot, the career 
 Of wliirlwind bearing from Flisha's sight 
 His master, to the throne of inexpressive light.
 
 26 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 Perchance we murmur at our scanty dole 
 Of knowledge, and would foreign climes explore ; 
 Invade the frozen desert of the pole. 
 Or breath the fragrance of Arabia's shore; 
 Or search the sculptured mountains of EUore ; 
 On Himalaya tempt the secret hall 
 Of Typhon, and the death-winged thundei-'s roar, 
 With summer fly round this terraqueous ball. 
 And keep each month alike the sun's bright festival. 
 
 LI. 
 
 But nobler were it, from Jove's moons to view 
 His huge circumference filling all the sky. 
 The darkling flight of Uranus pursue. 
 And if above such height ascending high. 
 Some exiled planet undiscovered lie. 
 On that strange watch-tower to sit specular. 
 Or on the comet ride infinity. 
 And wandering o'er creation, see from far 
 The glorious orb of day diminished to a star.
 
 KILLARNEY. 27 
 
 LIT. 
 
 Even this were little — to the just is given 
 A loftier range, a kingdom more sublime j 
 The inviolable sanctuary of heaven. 
 Where never doubt, nor ignorance, nor crime, 
 Where never sorrow or dismay can climb. 
 Transfigured into light, they leave below 
 The narrow boundaries of space and time. 
 And up the everlasting mountains go. 
 Where bliss unutterable, nor pause, nor end shall 
 know. 
 
 END or DAY FIRSr.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 DAY SECOND.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 DAY SECOXD. 
 
 I. 
 
 Fitly the patriarch sought the inspiring power 
 Of meditation at the close of day; 
 And mystery hath marked it for the hour 
 Of sacrifice, wherein to watch and pray. 
 Then angel visitation made assay 
 Of Abraham's faith and hospitable rite, 
 Then rested tlie Creator to survey 
 The six days' work maturing in liis sight, 
 The illuminated, formed, and ])eopled infinite.
 
 32 KILLARNEY, 
 
 II. 
 
 Even the gay worldling feels the touch of awe, 
 While in repose the winds and waters lie, 
 While day, and all day's vanities withdraw. 
 And as the twilight muffles earth and sky. 
 Colour and form, and sound and motion die : 
 For in that gloom and stillness is the sign 
 Of adoration, mute, yet heard on high. 
 Praise universal to the Power divine. 
 Creation bending low before Jehovah's shrine. 
 
 III. 
 
 But what of time or place ? It is the fire 
 Within the heart, lights up the jubilee 
 Of faith and hope. The prophet could retire 
 Each day, undaunted by the king's decree, 
 From care, from Babylon, from empire free. 
 With foes and danger compassed round, even then, 
 Though death was in the act, he bent the knee. 
 Indifferent to the praise or blame of men. 
 The burning fiery furnace, or the lion's den.
 
 KILLARNEY. 33 
 
 IV. 
 
 When sail the constellations and the moon 
 Along the depth of midnight atmosphere. 
 Or when the full resplendency of noon 
 Op23resses vision, Him acknowledge there. 
 Who light and dark distributes, month and year ; 
 On him alone in heaven and earth rely. 
 Him without change, and without end revere. 
 Enthroned above all domination high. 
 Unknown, yet ever felt ; unseen, yet ever nigh, y 
 
 Nor less we find a language in the morn, 
 A monitor in the return of day, 
 An emblem in the joy to be new born 
 From darkness to the sun's all-cheering ray, 
 In every sight and sound a call to pay 
 The matin orison. Let heart and head. 
 Let hand and voice that oracle obey : 
 Give every thought to heaven ; and from the l)ed 
 Of indolence arise, as rising from the dead. 
 
 D
 
 34 KILLARNEY. 
 
 VI. 
 
 This clone, beneath the sylvan colonnade. 
 That eastward skirts the lake, we wind along ; 
 Screened by an avenue of chequered shade. 
 Green as the groves of oriental song. 
 Where Caliphs wander, or where Genii throng 
 The bowers of Paradise. How bright a gleam 
 Incessant flickers the dusk leaves among : 
 So Heaven accords an interposing beam 
 Of mercy and of truth to life's lugubrious dream. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Fair stream of Flesk ! but mutable as fair, 
 Dependent on the chances of an hour ; 
 This moment mild, translucent, debonair. 
 The next, impatient of the storm and .shower, 
 All foam and fury, turbulence and power. 
 How dost thou picture forth our joy and woe. 
 Virtues that bless, and passions that devour; 
 Till comes the last and liberating throe. 
 And I'ound about the streets the pomps of mourn- 
 ing go !
 
 KILLARNEY. 35 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Welcome the close peninsular recess. 
 Whose groves and thickets from the heat invite ; 
 Whose cool, whose dew, whose quietude, we bless, 
 Impervious to the sun's meridian height. 
 Each thickening shade increasing the delight. 
 Sour ringlets there betray the fairy hand. 
 The foot-print and the gambol of each sprite. 
 That greets the moon by water or by land. 
 Dances on lawn, or skims the furrows of the strand. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But hush — and either name them not at all, 
 (For best they love a reverence taciturn), 
 Or "neighbours" them, or " the good people" call; 
 For once provoked, they quick retort the spurn ; 
 Spavin thy cattle, or thy corn-ricks burn ; 
 For thee in pale su])lunar foray prowl. 
 And toss thee on the tempest of the chum, 
 Hang thee like bacon-flitch in smoke to howl, 
 Or roast thee like a crab, and plunge in gossip's bowl. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 KILLARNEY. 
 
 X. 
 
 They love in cavern or in mine to dwell. 
 They love upon the hurricane to ride ; 
 Or wander fog-borne over moor and fell. 
 Or from the beetling promontory glide. 
 To look for shipwrecks on the heaving tide. 
 Lay, legend, cry of Banshee, they prolong. 
 Peopling with echoes every mountain side ; 
 And breathe the spells of poetry and song. 
 In melodies that mourn and die the clouds among. 
 
 XI. 
 
 But longer in such reverie to rove 
 Befits not, near the consecrated pile. 
 That chastening with religious awe the grove. 
 To penitence and mourning gave asyle 
 In ages past from misery and from guile. 
 A symbol of hereafter, of repose 
 Where sorrow cannot wound, nor sin defile : 
 Forgiven and forgotten all our foes ; 
 The trial past, and joy unspeakable the close.
 
 KILLARNEY. ' 37 
 
 XII. 
 
 Thy towers, forsaken Mucruss ! to the poor 
 Were once of hospitable aid the sip^n, 
 And, tlaily crowding- through yon amj)lc door 
 In serried files, came pilgrims to the shrine. 
 But time at leisure now may undemiine 
 The pillar, and deface the mouldering wall. 
 And every pinnacle with ivy twine : 
 The l)urial rite alone remains of all 
 That once was crosier, chant, high-mass and festival. 
 
 Xtll. 
 
 And who can blame the peasant if he mourn 
 Even yet in fond remembrance of tlic past; 
 1 f even in death he cling to the sojourn 
 Of all his ancestors, or wisli at last 
 His own remains beside tliem may be cast r* 
 And if be ibiiik tlie virtue of such grave 
 May sliorten ])urgatory's fiery fast. 
 Pity his error, and its pardon crave 
 From Him who reigns above. Omnipotent to save !
 
 38 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Look through the portal — nave and choir, and tomb. 
 Stained with the damp, and strewn with many a 
 
 bone. 
 And wrapt at every step in denser gloom. 
 To silence and to solitude bemoan 
 Their fallen estate : one nari'ow arch alone. 
 At utmost distance, marks with feeble ray, 
 The sanctuary's recess, and chiselled stone. 
 So through the dun obscure of life we stray. 
 Yet welcome at the end a gleam of heavenly day. 
 
 XV. 
 
 What groans of dole and penance once dismayed 
 Yon cloister, buried from the sun and air. 
 Beneath the central yew-tree's giant shade! 
 Here hath the guilt- o'erburdened solitaire 
 Mused, till remorse was deepened to despair : 
 Here saints have fought their agonizing fight. 
 With anguish and temptation, doubt and care. 
 Till in the beatific trance of light 
 The world and the world's woe evanished from their 
 sight.
 
 KILLARNEY. 39 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The grass grows rankly, and the saplings wave 
 O'er hall and donnitory, porch and cell ; 
 Each passage is a den, each aisle a cave : 
 But who shall tempt the vaults, or dare to tell 
 What inmates there of unknown horror dwell P 
 How sighs the breeze, how languishes the day ; 
 What tenderness, what pain in the farewel 
 To these dismantled gates and turrets gray. 
 Once dedicate to heaven, still reverend in decay. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 But hence we must — it yet remains to scale 
 
 The mountain, ere o1>struction intervene 
 
 Of haze or tempest ; gradual fruni the vale 
 
 We mount, and gradual fades the smooth moist 
 
 green 
 To rough, adust, and barren. So between . 
 Ambition's early toil and late success 
 No path is to be found of peace serene: 
 The more our eminence, the comfort less, 
 Till the whole world at length be one ilrear wilderness.
 
 '^^ KILLARNEY. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 What change upon the hills ! unclouded now. 
 On the pure bosom of the sky reclined ; 
 Now in a moment round each furrowed brow 
 With what a chain invisible they bind 
 The vapours borne beside them on the Avind ; 
 Then cast the mantle off, then closer draw. 
 Above, below, before them, and behind. 
 Till all be turbulence, and winter's flaw. 
 Such as on Appenine the Punic chieftain saw. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 And owned the ruin of the Alps outdone. 
 Yet still the darkness fluctuates : and again 
 Like a vast curtain rises, while the sun. 
 Looking abroad in victory, poui's amain 
 The deluge of his beams o'er lake and plain. 
 So when the tempter prompts, and passions fell 
 Make war on duty, frenzy clouds the brain. 
 Till the bright Sun of righteousness dispel 
 The foul distemperature, and all again be well.
 
 KILLARNEY. 4l 
 
 XX. 
 
 Up Marifi^erton we go : from prospect wide 
 To wider, and from pure to purer air. 
 The horizon opening as the hills subside. 
 And distance softening down the rude and bare. 
 As hope and memory picture all things fair. 
 Buoyed up with expectation and with glee. 
 We take no thought of labour or of care. 
 The spirits lighter, and the limbs more free. 
 And half the burden drop[)ed of gross mortality. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Nor pause we, till the crater's edge we gain, 
 The goblet named of Lucifer ; a mound 
 Of curving precipice, wherein the drain 
 From cloud and fountain feeds the pool })rofouiKl 
 That mantles in the midst. Here let tlie sound 
 Of bugle to blithe echo wind the call : 
 And, hark ! the rcpcrcussive heights around. 
 Harmonious in contention, answer all ; 
 And long vibrations ring througii their aerial liall
 
 42 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 One effort more, and highest of the high. 
 Near the rude cairn, we breathe empyreal air : 
 Above, the deep cerulean of the sky. 
 Beneath, a boundless cirque of prospect fair ; 
 Turk, and the Reeks, and Iveragh's ridges bare. 
 Lakes, rivers, meadows, woods, and mountains blue, 
 Bantry and Castlemaine, and wild Kenmare ; 
 Till on th' horizon, outline, site, and hue. 
 Together blending, fade in dusk and doul^t from view. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Pausing at every step, along the ridge 
 That over-hangs the concave on we stray, 
 Till now the rugged rampart like a bridge 
 Bestrides vacuity, and leads the way 
 Where right and left, astounded we survey 
 The vast abruption. Reconnoitring slow 
 Lest the steep verge thy careless feet betray, 
 Behold the horse's glen ; approach the brow. 
 Recoil not, shrink not from the fearful depth below.
 
 KILLARNEY. 43 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 But brace each nerve and cast a downward eye. 
 Where 'mid the chasm, ingulfed in waste and gioom. 
 Far, far beneath, the dismal waters lie. 
 And all around them, rock and heath and broom 
 Usurp dominion, leaving scanty room 
 Between the tarn and craer for one soft erreen 
 Of pasturage in the shattered wreck of doom 
 And deluge, where the ravages are seen 
 Of vengeance yet ; where peace and hope have never 
 been. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Look ; l)ut for safety to tlie heather cling : 
 
 Forbear discourse, and lot no lighter tone 
 
 Of melody invoke the mountain king, 
 
 (/) But one deep supplicating sigh alone 
 
 Be breathed; — he hears, — he answers, — the low 
 
 groan 
 01' wild re-murnuirecl sorrow awes the dell : 
 Again, more faint, the melancholy moan 
 Is heard of loneliness and fear to tell ; 
 And fainter yet again scarce whispers the I'arewel.
 
 44 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 It is a sadness like the dying beam 
 Of day, tlie knell when passing spirits go ; 
 The strangely-blent vagaries of a dream. 
 Where present, past and future, friend and foe. 
 The near, the distant, hurry to and fro. 
 Mingling in shapes that earth can never yield. 
 Vicissitude and voyage, weal and woe: 
 Brief images of things from knowledge sealed 
 Of mortals, yet in part and shadow thus revealed. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Even here, in devastation and dismay. 
 The love of lucre, strong as death, detains 
 A thrifty hermitess, who day by day 
 From cream's rich unctuousness the serum drains. 
 And prints ambrosial butter, on the plains 
 Beside Kingsale, or Cork's famed city sold. 
 The seasons and their change, the winds and rains. 
 The moisture and the drought, the heat and cold. 
 And solitude like death, all please in hope of gold.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 45 
 
 Behold her walking on the water's brink. 
 To where her kine seek herbage in the glen : 
 The roots her food, the mountain-dew her drink. 
 The caverned rock her magazine and den, 
 And little her desire for help of men. 
 Herself can work the churn, and scour the pail, 
 The docile herd herself can milk and pen ; 
 And all her thoughts are handicraft and sale, 
 Till winter's tyranny tlislodge her to the vale. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Day wears apace ; no longer here sojourn : 
 The circuit of the cratei*'s rim complete. 
 And to the stony entrance back return. 
 Whence borne on indefatigable feet 
 A world of youthful parasites, with sweet 
 Cajolery paged us down the mountain side. 
 But when their candied flattery failed to meet 
 The silver guerdon, changing note they cried, 
 " Bad luck to you ; and shame such stinginess betide."
 
 46 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Down to the bay umbrageous of Dundalk 
 Repair we, where the boat and banquet wait ; 
 There, carelessly diffused in sylvan walk. 
 Share we provision with our crew, and prate 
 Of peace and politics, of war and state ; 
 Wealthy and high-born cavalcaders see. 
 Yet count our own of all the happiest fate : 
 For what to us are fortune and degree ? 
 No poet so entranced, no king so great as we ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 But converse must have end — the sun declines. 
 And ancient saws instruct us to take note 
 Of profit by his presence when he shines. 
 Thus warned, we quit refection for the boat. 
 Push off, and joy to be again afloat ; 
 While, like the men of Athens, we pursue 
 Whate'er is found of novel and remote. 
 The conscious spirit straining to the view 
 Of worlds invisible, where all things shall be new.
 
 KILLARNEY. 47 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Athwart the Middle-Lake our course we shape. 
 By many a wooded creek and lonely bay. 
 And rock strange-hollowed, and strange-cloven cape, 
 That gently meet us, gently slide away. 
 Like dreams departing at the break of day ; 
 The while from our associates fable old 
 We glean of eartlily and unearthly fray. 
 Mines where imprisoned goblins dig for gold. 
 And spells that never must to mortal ears be told. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Alas! that cold oblivion should inurn 
 Too oft the glory with the mortal frame. 
 And scarce an echo from the grave r(!tuni 
 Of all the toil, the triumph and acclame. 
 And ancientry and power, and deeds of fame. 
 Each cave, each headland as we "flide alona:. 
 Of hero, or of saint records tlie name, 
 And all around us the memorials thronir 
 Of conquest, monarchy, and wiu; ami |)oet's song.
 
 48 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 What pomp of verdure from each height descends. 
 Grove falling under grove, from steep to steep. 
 Till the thick foliage with the water blends. 
 Circling the shore in one continuous sweep. 
 And sinks into the bosom of the deep. 
 There mingling with the faint reflected gleam 
 Of clouds, that on the calm of evening sleep. 
 So down into the grave we from the dream 
 Of earth descend, to meet eternal glory's beam. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 At length appears the outlet, to a span 
 Contracting suddenly the waters wide. 
 Where works pontifical, of modest plan. 
 From island to peninsular-woodland stride. 
 Beneath whose solitary arch we glide. 
 And issuing on the Lake of Lein, behold 
 The vapours settling on the mountain side. 
 All change of figure and of hue unfold ; 
 Fanes, cities, palaces of adamant and gold.
 
 KILLARNEY. 49 
 
 XXXVl. 
 
 North-westerly our course : while on the left 
 Glena's wild nemorosities repeat 
 Each bugle note ; till where of shade bereft, 
 The double peaks of Toomies' tower, they meet. 
 They mix with kindred resonances sweet. 
 Retiring to the realms of upjjer air. 
 And lessening die. — Not so the strains that greet 
 The soul heaven -mounting from the den of care. 
 The conscience without guile, the heart that burns in 
 prayer. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Sequestered loveliness I how stretch around 
 The sylvan undulations far and wide. 
 With what magnificence of shade profound. 
 What prodigality of pomp and pride, 
 O'er lawn and up the precipice they glide : 
 And far above, in majesty austere. 
 What altitudes of rock the cloud divide. 
 Challenge the tempest, and delight to hear 
 The tliunder antl the wind in ballb'd rage career. 
 
 £
 
 50 KILL/VRNEY, 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Landing, we plunge into the ascending glade 
 That clambers to the torrent's angry leap, 
 Surnamed of old ' O'Sullivan's Cascade.' 
 It roars, it sparkles : cautiously we creep 
 To where, half bending o'er the giddy steep, 
 We gaze vipon the never-ceasing flow 
 That shakes the forest ; headlong to the deep 
 Precipitated from the bosky brow : 
 All shade and gloom above, all flash and foam below. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 But now the winds and waters utter moan 
 Presag'eful of commotion : downward bend 
 The labouring clouds ; the promontories groan ; 
 Low murmurs from each glen and cave ascend 
 Responsive ; the far-spreading vapours blend 
 In shapelessness of dusk, cloud, water, shore. 
 Lost in the haze promiscuous without end ; 
 And time is to be gone, ere danger more 
 Environ our retreat, ere with a deepening roar
 
 KILLARNEY. 51 
 
 XL. 
 
 The tempest and confusion worse confound 
 The lurid gloom. In loftier ridges swell 
 The billows ; and with long continuous sound 
 The surges wild and wilder whirlwinds tell. 
 With what a gust they in commotion mell. 
 Faint gleams amid the darkness show the spray 
 In eddies borne along the tumult fell : 
 Extinct is the last lingering spark of day. 
 And the moon hides her face in sorrow and dismay. 
 
 XLi. 
 
 O for the vision of the sceptred sage 
 That never comes but witli a guardian power 
 Amid the wreck of elemental rage. 
 Amid tornadoes when they blackest lour, 
 Amid the waves just opening to devour. 
 Whate'er the changes or the chances be. 
 The dread or danger, gracious is the hour 
 And omen, his meteorous light to see 
 On tower of Aghadoe, or Inisfallen's lee. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Joy — joy! — behold the venerable form, 
 The sainted king uplift his placid brow ; 
 From vulgar sight enshrouded in the storm. 
 Or seemins: as the waves that dash below. 
 The gifted eye alone hath power to know 
 What sovereign, in what guise delights to roam ; 
 What hope, what comfort from his presence flow : 
 For when, emerging from his watery home. 
 He reins the courser white that prances o'er the foam. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 The billows and the winds forbear to roar, 
 Or roar unheeded, impotent to harm. 
 A mighty potentate was he of yore. 
 And knew full well oppression to disarm 
 By law, and equity, and virtue's charm : 
 Where due, he lavished bounty and renown. 
 But from his palace drove the flatterer swann 
 That bask in smiles and wither at a frown. 
 And fawn, and lie, and think all glory in a crown.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 53 
 
 One day, amid the banquet and the hall, 
 He rose, and vented wild prophetic strain, 
 Borne on a cloud forsook the festival, 
 And plunged into the bosom of the main. 
 Yet privilege was given him to regain 
 At will these ujiper regions, there anew 
 To spread the blessings of his ancient reign, 
 And bid high fortune wait upon the few. 
 Who in the needful hour such apparition view. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Even now the gale before him sinks, while chide 
 The surges with less tumult on the shore j 
 And safely by the Prison-Isle we glide. 
 Or where on Cherry-Reef the billows roar : 
 And now again the treasury we explore 
 Of record, rumour, elves, and magic wand, 
 And Erin's rich traditionary store. 
 Time thus beguiled, all unawares to land 
 
 We come, and grounding boat, leap out upon ilic 
 
 V strand.
 
 54 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Beneath the battlements of Ross our bark 
 We leave, and ruminating home return. 
 Kindling with more than a Promethean spark. 
 Thoughts like Sidonian Cynosure, that burn 
 Amid th' obscurity of life's sojourn ; 
 How war, and trumpet, and the minstrel's chime. 
 Must all lie mute in monumental urn. 
 And how beyond the grave we soar sublime 
 Into the Paradise of heaven's empyreal clime. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 How yearns ethereal essence to transcend 
 The limits of mortality and clay ; 
 What raptvu-e in the half-belief we lend 
 To tales of wizard eld, and phantom gray. 
 The Runic rhyme, the legendary lay : 
 What bliss in dreams emancipate to glide 
 Through present, past and future ; to survey 
 The secrets buried under ocean's tide. 
 Or to new labyrinth of worlds o'er chaos ride.
 
 KILLARNEY. ^>0 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Yet be not long a loiterer in the maze 
 
 Where sleep deludes, or fiction : the supreme 
 
 In joy is on the majesty to gaze 
 
 Of truth, and from the world's delirious dream 
 
 Awake into the pure authentic beam 
 
 Of faith; and onward press (as strength is given), 
 
 Thought gradual following thought, theme following 
 
 theme, 
 And cast away th' intoxicating leaven 
 Of crude philosophy for manna sent from heaven. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 There is a sanctuary (howe'er unknown 
 To the world's worshipper) from iloubt and care ; 
 ( There is a palm of triumph, and a crown 
 \ That may be won by violence of prayer : 
 And meditation, like the mystic stair 
 In Bethel, upward leads from earth below, 
 To where immortal choirs the j)raise declare 
 Of Him at whose right hand the rivers flow 
 Of peace and joy that (ill tiie Everlasting No\\ .
 
 56 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 No more cherubic visitants descend, 
 As once at Mahanaim, or the hill 
 Of Dothan, in corporeal shape to tend 
 The patriarch and the prophet, or fulfil 
 On cities, hosts, and realms th' Almighty will ; 
 Yet still repenting sinners they behold 
 With joy, and guard through tribulation still 
 Tlie white-robed multitude, the sacred fold. 
 Of whom th' Apocalyspe by elder's voice hath told. 
 
 LI. 
 
 And though the dread Triune for ever dwell 
 Beyond creation, beyond depth and height. 
 Beyond all knowledge, inaccessible. 
 Pavilioned in the majesty and light 
 Of his own beams ; yet from that temple bright 
 His mercy looks, illumining the wise. 
 And piloting the watchful, till from night 
 And death they to th' eternal morning rise. 
 From earth's discordant din to angel harmonies.
 
 KILLARNEY. . 57 
 
 LII. 
 
 There, kindling into ecstasy, the soul 
 Shall from perfection to perfection soar. 
 And years and centui'ies by millions roll. 
 While saints, sublimed to seraphim, adore 
 (As knowledge widens) ever more and more : 
 And still the triumphings that never end 
 Are but beginning on that blissful shore 
 Where glory and delight in union blend. 
 And in perpetual flight above all heavens ascend. 
 
 END OF DAY SECOND.
 
 KJLLARNEY 
 
 DAY THIRD.
 
 KILLARNEY 
 
 DAY THIRD. 
 
 I. 
 
 Blow, tempest — thunder, roll ; ye suit \]\o o-lonm 
 And if ye startle luxury from sleep. 
 Ye but awake liim to remember doon), 
 Ye but forewarn him (lest oblivion creep 
 Upon his visfil) to repent and weep. 
 Dull world, l)estir ihee ; kneel at mercy's slirine. 
 Ere retribution the dread harvest reap, 
 And answer none vouchsafe to })rayer of thine, 
 Save the wrath fulminant, and chastisement divine.
 
 62 KILLARNEY. 
 
 II- 
 
 How turbulent the night's capricious change 
 From calm to storm, from darkness to the beam 
 Of moon illumining the wonderous range 
 Of mountain, rock, and wood : what lightnings 
 
 gleam. 
 What clouds and meteors on th' horizon stream. 
 What whistling of the winds, what pelting shower, 
 Forbidding sleep, or vexing sleep with dream 
 Of din, turmoil and peril, and the hour 
 When hags come forth to ban, and monsters to devour. 
 
 III. 
 
 Arise, and into the fresh morn repair ; 
 Fresh morn how fragrant after such unrest, 
 Though little we espy of augury fair 
 Amid the storms that from each mountain crest 
 Roll downward to the valley, and invest 
 With equal haze the cliff and dingle green, 
 Long-Range, and Purple-Mount, and Eagle's-Nest, 
 Whose rugged fronts more terrible are seen. 
 And strike a deeper dread through clouds that inter- 
 vene.
 
 KILLARNEY. 03 
 
 IV. 
 
 The stags that browze the forest, in bravado 
 Their antlers lock, half anger and half play ; 
 Nor dream how soon, aroused by ambuscado 
 Of hound, of huntsman, and of gentles gay. 
 They must o'erswim the flood, or stand at bay : 
 So merciful is heaven (though few receive 
 Aright what reason and sound doctrine say), 
 Each creature thus in ignorance to leave 
 Of casualty to come, lest premature they grieve. 
 
 What gained the king of Israel, wlien he went 
 To learn at Endor (by unlawful art 
 Of wizard and familiar) wai-'s event P 
 What balm could the prophetic voice impart 
 For wounded conscience, and a broken heart ? 
 Enough the present : who would live again 
 His piist of being ? wliy invoke the dait 
 Of future ill, anticipate tlie chain, 
 Or woo, before the time, captivity and jiain ^
 
 64 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then be not like the monarch ; but repose 
 On heaven thy care, with not a wish to view 
 The future — look but to the final close ; 
 And day by day, and night by nig-ht renew 
 The services of adoration due. 
 Leave others the diviner's art to try ; 
 But thou thine even, onward course pursue. 
 In boisterous or serene, in moist or dry. 
 As moves the sun alike through bright or cloudy sky. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Our moralizing done, return we home, 
 Where ceaselessly bells ring and customers call ; 
 Such banquet is in Gorham's ample dome. 
 Of race and stag-hunt such the festival. 
 The wanderer who had hoped in lonely hall 
 To loiter, and in lonely peace explore 
 The rocks and islands, groves and valleys all ; 
 Hears with affright the stentorophonic roar 
 Of landlord, waiter, guest, augmenting ever more
 
 KILLARNEY. 65 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The many-throated harmonies of morn, 
 
 Each urban and suburban ear that greet, 
 
 The thunder of the wheels, the mail-guard's horn, . 
 
 Steeds, donkies, coaches, tempesting the street. 
 
 Rattle of cudgels, tramp of countless feet. 
 
 Hoofed, brogued, or bare : carts rumbling o'er the 
 
 stones. 
 Curs, children, pigs, the burly to complete. 
 And jaunting-cars that dislocate the bones. 
 And sallow mendicants, that mingle gibes with moans. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Pipes, hurdy-gurdies, trumpets, drums, astound 
 The crowds that every where confusedly run, 
 While swai-m into the town from all around, 
 Jockey and Greek, and reeling ripe Inr fun 
 Or figlit, tall lads whose shouts the welkin stun ; 
 Till the grave magistrate steps in between. 
 Whose voice, whose frown, whose Mittimus they 
 
 shun : 
 For why i* the constables are near him seen. 
 And files of armed police in uniform of green.
 
 66 KILLARNEY. 
 
 X. 
 
 Kind genius of the desert ! interpose. 
 And lead us car-borne to thy bower on high, 
 Where rock and solitude may round us close. 
 And meditation to the world may die. 
 Caparison the horse, and let us fly. 
 Unheeding wind or rain : nor madly stay 
 Where strife preludes to challenge, and each eye 
 Glares like a comet, boding feud and fray : 
 Push on into the storm — ^the storm less wild than they. 
 
 XI. 
 
 As by St. Withold from the bosom driven 
 The night-mare and her ninefold brood retire. 
 And ecstasies unknown before are given. 
 New strength we feel, new faculties acquire. 
 All life and bliss and intellectual fire ; 
 So, as we sally forth, tlie shout, the song. 
 The yelp, the buz, the dissonance expire ; 
 And the companions sole that round us throng 
 Are thoughts that more to Paradise than earth belong.
 
 KILLARNEY. 6/ 
 
 XII. 
 
 If silence thus be melody, and ease 
 Be luxury, disincarcerated to rove, 
 And li^sten to the rustling- leaves, the breeze 
 That soothes, the birds that vocalize the grove. 
 The Flesk, that murmurs like the widowed dove ; 
 Think what the triumj)li and the jubilee \ 
 
 01' souls dismissed from earth to heaven above, \ 
 For ever haj)py and for ever free / 
 
 Expatiating, and heirs of immortality. ' 
 
 xni. 
 
 The darkness and the gloominess behold 
 Of morn upon the mountains, where the shade 
 Of clouds along the dusky regions rolled. 
 Half hiding, and revealing half, hath made 
 A wilderness of night on copse and glade. 
 And all the frowning dreariness around ; 
 Where sight is baffled and the heart afraid 
 To look on that obscurity profound. 
 Or enterprize approach to that forbidden ground. 
 
 F 2
 
 0'8 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Such darkness veiled th* Avenger who destroyed 
 The vaunted armies of th' Assyrian king ; 
 Such darkness brooded o'er the formless void 
 Ere yet the overshadowing Spirit his wing 
 Outspread, ere yet the light began to spring ; 
 Such darkness hung o'er man ; till love divine 
 The victory from the grave, from death the sting 
 Despoiled, and bade on Calvary the sign 
 Of mastery o'er the world and that old Serpent shine. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Along the lake, and up the giddy side 
 Of Turk, in depth dimensionless extend 
 The woodlands, towering high and spreading wide 
 In one unbroken verdure without end. 
 Mantle the slope, the precipice ascend 
 Above the clouds that in mid aether sail. 
 And though ten thousand charms of beauty blend 
 With that stern grandeur, yet the cheek turns pale. 
 And as we gaze, the pulse throbs quick, the spirits 
 quail.
 
 KILLARNEY. 69 
 
 XVI. 
 
 But who are tliey that mustering up tlie storm 
 Engarrison the gorge of yon defile, 
 And on the pendant hills encamjiment form, 
 Prohibiting access ? What shall beguile 
 Their fury, or what covert grant asyle P 
 With widening front their legions they outspread. 
 With murkier horror gloom on gloom they pile. 
 Cast night before, brew tempest overhead. 
 And mingle heaven and earth in darkness and in dread. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Glcna and all his giant ncighl)0urs fade. 
 Enveloped one by one in vapour foul 
 Till total overwhelmed : then wrapt in shade 
 Rush down the fiends : the clouds in volumes roll, 
 Vancouriers to the thunder's distant growl. 
 From rock and heath the showers in smoke rebound, 
 The cataracts dash, the frighted forests howl ; 
 The horse, bewildered and aghast, turns round. 
 The (hivcM* and liis faro sit helpless and Iialf-(hdwned.
 
 70 KILLARNEY, 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Rough music this of elemental war. 
 Now feigning intermission, now again 
 Redoubled, calling echo from afar 
 To summon all the magazines of rain, 
 Sleet, hail, and hurricane, that spout amain 
 Storm after storm, each heavier than the last. 
 Shaking the hills, and deluging the plain 
 In aggravated chaos : earth aghast 
 Groans in Egyptian dark, and shrinks beneath the 
 blast. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Still toward Kenmare we toil, to where the road 
 Hewn through the rock in canopy of proof 
 And gallery grotto-like, might seem th' abode 
 Of hospitable fairy ; while aloof 
 Stand gust and shower, to let the weary hoof 
 Of steed or man rest quiet underground. 
 We entered : and beneath that vaulted roof 
 Ensconced a goodly company we found ; 
 And salutation frank of courtesy went round.
 
 KILLARNEY. 71 
 
 XX. 
 
 What zest, what solace in the coveit given 
 By Oberon here or Archimag-o's wand, 
 That through the crag such corridor hath riven 
 So soothe our toil. Ah ! let the heart expand 
 To see how marshalled by th' Omnific hand. 
 The hopes that elevate, the fears that quell, 
 In order due of alternation stand : 
 Pain, lest our pride wax wanton, and rebel ; 
 And comfort, lest the heart o'ercharged to bursting 
 swell. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Not long we tarry here : our course is bent 
 To where the crags of Eagle's-Nest denote 
 A rendezvous ; the car is liomeward sent ; 
 Ourselves, envelojjed close in cloak or coat, 
 (Like tortoise in its sliell) expect tlie boat; 
 While tempest after tempest sweeping fast 
 Swells Avith Ty])hopan roar his angry tliroat. 
 In fissured rock we harbour from ihe blast; 
 Should wintei-'s self assail, he must relent at last.
 
 72 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Thus perdu couched, we mark the straggling throng 
 Car-mounted or equestrian, the gay world 
 Of Kerry, troop stoim-buffeted along, 
 Their high top-gallants to the gale unfurled. 
 Quaint caps awry, quaint chevelures uncurled, ^ 
 Maugre the o'ernight's industry to fold 
 The ringlet, round and round in paper twirled. 
 Alas ! the draggled victims to behold ; 
 How shrinking from the wet, how shivering with the 
 cold ! 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 But this and more, will under name of sport 
 And hunting of the roe, be gladly borne ; 
 Like rout, assembly, etiquette of court, 
 VVliieh, but for pomp and name, were woe forlorn. 
 The sluggard hath arisen at early morn. 
 The slattern pranked herself in trim attire. 
 The dainty dame of tax-cart thought no scorn, 
 The tippler left his can, the bard his lyre. 
 Such philter hath the chase, such puissance hath desire.
 
 KILLARNEY. 73 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 No need there is of courser here ; and few 
 O'er precipice and bog, through briar and brake. 
 The track of huntsman or of hound pursue ; 
 But far along the road procession make. 
 Or on the water side their station take. 
 Or wiser still (if weather smile serene) 
 Launch on the tranquil bosom of the l^ake, 
 Whence every where rock, mountain, wood, and 
 green. 
 Dog, sportsman, militaire, and beaux and belles are seen. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The storms abate, the boat arrives ; the hour 
 Is nigh; the shouts from dift" to clift' resound. 
 See the scared eagle from his eyry tower 
 Aloft, on wide-spread pinions circling round, 
 Bidding the desert to his scream resound. 
 While angrily he chides the clamorous train 
 That violate liis soliluthj proliiund, 
 ISIarring with idle luxury, tumult vain. 
 The kingly contemplations of his ancient reign.
 
 74 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 O restlessness of man, that cannot leave 
 In peace the field, the river, and the wood ! 
 O vacancy of thought, that must deceive 
 Life's tedium with false images of good ! 
 Were the true source of blessing understood, 
 Such darkness would be lost in radiance bright 
 From Tabor mountain or fi'om Jordan's flood ; 
 Celestial visions would illume the night. 
 Thoughts redolent of heaven attend returning light. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 List ! — hear we not the cry of hound and horn 
 Amid the glens, upon the mountain's breast. 
 Heart-stirring as the feathered choirs of morn 
 When thrush and lark the prize of song contest. 
 And sweet as evening's lullabies of rest ? 
 The sentimentalist may word it well. 
 The Stoic or the Cynic frown or jest ; 
 But in that harmony there is a spell 
 To countermine the wise, and reason's self to quell.
 
 KILLARNEY. 75 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 How the wild music undulates along^ 
 Yon rocky cliunnel ; now remote, now near! 
 What expectation silences the throng, 
 Listening the peal that fainter or more clear 
 
 At length with swelling chorus fills our ear ! 
 The heart beats audible : the doubling call 
 Bids each in ambush wait th' approaching deer : 
 Some line the copse, some in tlie herbage crawl, 
 Some crouch in boat ; all eye, all ear, impatience all. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 He comes ! — he comes I — be ready with tlie boat 
 The very crisis of your fate is nigh : 
 Let him but plunge ; then seize him while afloat. 
 And with loud shouts jiroclaim the victory ! 
 Shame — shame, — we showed ourselves too soon 
 
 his eye 
 Hath marked us ; and lie seeks a tlistant shore. 
 Of rage and mutual l)lame then rose tlie cry ; 
 And (nuuh 1 ft-ar me) even our cockswain swore, 
 Wlio never alter did, n.n- exec did hefore.
 
 '6 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 The game hath taken soil, and lost to view 
 Securely stems the wave ; nor will a hound. 
 Till thrown into the stream, the chase renew. 
 Too late revive they there, too late have found 
 Cold puzzling scent, aud vainly quest around 
 The further shore. In safety's jubilee 
 The quarry, far ahead, hath come to ground. 
 Swallows the plain, and scales the steep with glee. 
 Once more the denizen of Turk and liberty ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 But, hark ! a second cry denotes the pack 
 Divided, and foretels a second chance. 
 He comes ! — the dogs close hanging on his track : 
 The lolling tongue, dun hide, and slow advance 
 Betray his toil : observe with wary glance 
 His plunge ; surround him, grasp his antlered brow. 
 And let the past mishap our joy enhance. 
 Exultingly we wave white banner now. 
 And hitrh in air our arbutus- wreathed bonnets throw.
 
 KILLARNEY. 77 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Resign him to the huntsman, and admire 
 
 His huge dimensions, and his branching head : 
 
 He seems the forest's venerable sire. 
 
 Or monarch who their armies long had led. 
 
 Though at his utmost need, the recreants fled. 
 
 Now finds he life and empire but a span. 
 
 While hood-winked he reclines, fast bound, half 
 
 dead. 
 And yielding to the mighty power of man, 
 Patient awaits his death, as patient as he can. 
 
 XXXTTT. 
 
 Yet nothing tiear : thou art a captive king, 
 And of a king the treatment shall 1)e tliine : 
 Not long the bandages shall round thee cling, 
 Nor shalt thou long in doubt and durance pine. 
 Heave not, nor look so piteously : resign 
 Awhile to bonds and fate : a prospect fair, 
 A brighter destiny shall quickly shine, 
 And to thy native woods thou shalt rejxiir. 
 To range the mountain free, free as the mountain air.
 
 78 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Meantime reg'atta-like in gallant show 
 Of boats with cabin or with awning gay. 
 We glide along the straits in lengthened row. 
 Or crescent-wise expand in opening bay. 
 Above them all, conspicuous in array 
 Of sumptuous gala, like a conqueroi-'s car, 
 A stately barge divides the liquid way. 
 Where sits the lovely Countess, from afar 
 Diffusing light and joy like some benignant star. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 I name her not (though worthy to be sung 
 By bard of olden time as Faery Queen 
 Hight Gloriana), though her crown be hung 
 On high, entwined with palms of deathless green. 
 The seraph path she walks, but walks unseen ; 
 Nor dare I desecrate with earthly fame 
 One so in virtue shrined and faith serene : 
 Nor am I fitting to record the name 
 Which want and sorrow bless, and angels shall proclaim.
 
 KILLARNEY. 79 
 
 XXXVT. 
 
 Glena ! let all thy fiastnesses expand 
 On the freed prisoner refuge to bestow. 
 He starts — he springs into the flood — for land 
 He makes, and is once more a king ! see now 
 With what a grandeur, what a grace his brow 
 He shakes, and rides upon the wave. Yet more 
 Elate he touches ground, bursts through the row 
 Of nets that, casual left, obstruct the shore. 
 Bounds to the Avood and thinks of trouble )>ast no 
 more. 
 
 xxxvn. 
 
 Scarce with such joy the Gallic monarch fled, 
 J^lscaping- from the durance vile of S])ain, 
 Bestrode the Turkish courser, felt his head 
 Encii'cled with the resal crown asrain. 
 And to Bayona sped in huge disdain. 
 Long rankled that immedicable wound 
 Of outraged majesty : through years of pain 
 Imperial Charles by sad experience found 
 What policy it were, had equity set bound
 
 '^0 KILLARNFA'. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 To lust of empire. Tyranny and pride 
 That grajDple all, set all upon a cast ; 
 And giant power that earth and heaven defied. 
 Struggles, like shipwrecked seamen on a mast. 
 For life, not victory ; and sinks at last. 
 But Lazarus at the gate enjoys within ( 
 
 The peace that, after brief probation past, / 
 
 Shall progress of immortal joy begin, 
 While through eternity resound the groans of -sin. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Our day's disport is done : but wouldest thou hear 
 Th' halloo of other worlds, far different liour 
 Thou must await, to fast in station drear 
 Of lonely beach, and watch the cloudy power 
 That builds the mist into a signal-tower 
 For things invisible. There let the spell 
 Of high-wrought fantasy thy thought imbower 
 Within that interlunar dark where dwell 
 The wonders which Jio tongue hath leave or power to 
 tell.
 
 KTLLARNEY. ^l 
 
 XL. 
 
 Sad privilege (and therefore given to few) 
 To pry upon the secrets of the dead: 
 Bethink thee, lest the heavy price thou rue : 
 To live, a spectacle of woe and dread, 
 No peace by day, no rest upon thy bed. 
 To roam, deserted as the stricken roe, 
 On the rough flint to lay thy houseless head. 
 And every balm of youth and hope forego. 
 Each sight a sight of pain, each sound a sound of woe. 
 
 XLF. 
 
 How fearful 'tis to walk the haunted plain 
 When twilight glooms, or dews of midnight fall, 
 When wild-fire lures to death the fated swain. 
 When corpse-lights glimmer in the witches' hall. 
 And revels not of earth flie moon appal : 
 When paws th' infernal charger in the glen. 
 And fairies to the passing meteors call. 
 Or strange communion hold in wizard (h'u 
 With many a giant shade that once were kings of men. 
 
 o
 
 82 KILLARNF.Y. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 See from the mountain or the cloud rush down 
 The formidable Hunter of the deep. 
 His name, his race, his errand all unknown. 
 Wind, flood, and thunder with less fury sweep 
 Than his pale courser plunges o'er the steep ; 
 Prostrates the forest, shakes the wilds around. 
 Fire-snorting takes, with mane erect, the leap ; 
 Flies o'er the lake at one impetuous bound. 
 Then vanishes in air, or sinks into the ground. 
 
 XLHI. 
 
 Intrepid watchers have beheld the sight 
 (Some say) near Ivrelagh's Franciscan pile. 
 Or where St. Finian reared the abbeyed height 
 Of sanctuary upon the sacred isle. 
 Ere rapine and Maolduin dared defile 
 The votive ground, and mad with thirst of gold 
 Profane the cemetery's last asyle. 
 Even yet, such chronicle, by beldam told. 
 Hath power to thrill with dread the boldest of the bold.
 
 KILLARNEY. 83 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 But now what acclamations from our trance 
 Awake us to the business of the day : 
 For, as the rosy-fingered hours advance, 
 Impatient appetite is heard to say, 
 " A time for all things — why the feast delay ?" 
 In wide promiscuous navy we forsake, 
 Glena, thy solemn amplitude of bay. 
 And o'er the roughening and cloud-darkened lake 
 Right eagerly our course to rest and dinner take. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 In universal boat-race we return 
 
 To Inisfallen's steep but verdant side : 
 
 The rowers toil, they strain, they pant, they burn. 
 
 "Well pulled, my sons," th' exulting cockswain 
 
 cried ; : • 
 
 " Hurra !" the sturdy mariners rejjlied. 
 " Drag her along," vociferates he ; and all 
 With a thrice-double zeal tlieir vigour tried. 
 Severe the toil : but sweet in Boatman's-Hall 
 To diango tlic tug of oars for ease and festival. 
 
 (i 2
 
 84 KILLARNEY, 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 Hail ! Inisfallen, hail ! enchanted ground. 
 In all th' excess of loveliness arrayed, 
 Amid the majesty of nature round ; 
 Here open lawn, there close-retiring shade. 
 Inextricable maze of copse and glade. 
 The tufted eminence, the flowery dell, 
 The music by the murmuring waters made. 
 The rock, the grotto — vain attempt to tell 
 The numberless delights that in this Eden dwell. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 But not this hour could contemplation find 
 Fit leisure here to meditate and pray ; 
 So thick the beach, the mead, the grove, are lined 
 With groups that saunter in confusion gay 
 Awhile of mutual quizzing and display. 
 Then on the grass or trunk of tree recline. 
 Soothed by the wind and water's roundelay. 
 And carve the baked meats, and pour out the wine 
 In honour of the day, but more of beauty's shrine.
 
 KILLARNEY. 85 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 See lady bright with pearly crescent mooned, 
 Gipsy and clown with not a hat to show. 
 Slim youths, bewhiskered or bepantalooned. 
 And brawny boatmen on the beach below. 
 Age, manhood, and the vermeil-tinctured glow 
 Of youth, all bandying shout and repartee. 
 Not one mute tongue, not one o'erclouded brow ; 
 While pleased the stranger and the tourist see 
 The isle abandoned all to frolic and to glee. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Some watch the rippling wave upon the shore. 
 Some walk the wildly-varied circuit round. 
 And each traditionary nook explore. 
 And the dim cave that hath memorial found, 
 For honour and confiding love renowned. 
 Now into figure glide the festive throng, 
 And dance begin : say not they touch the ground ; 
 For beauty floats in air, and skims along, 
 Charming and charmetl, on wings ol' mclotly and song.
 
 86 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 Time was, the pomp conventual here arose 
 Of transept, clerestory, nave and quire. 
 That from the world gave refuge and repose 
 To youthful acolyte, and hoary sire. 
 The lordly abbot and cord-girded friar. 
 Who once confession heard, awarded doom. 
 Or of devotion fanned the living fire. 
 They were ; but are not : in sepulchral gloom 
 They sleep, and memory's self lies buried in their tomb. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Here then one moment let me rescue still 
 From merriment that leaves no trace behind ; 
 And 'mid the fractured relics rove at will 
 Of cell and cloister ; wisdom there to find. 
 Where weeds and ivy rustle to the wind. 
 And not a pinnacle remains to fall 
 Of niche or tomb that saint or hero shrined. 
 Arch, gateway, tower and porch are mouldered all. 
 Briars, nettles, mole-hills liide the consecrated wall.
 
 KILLARNEY. 87 
 
 LII. 
 
 Where now of noon, of vespers, or of prime. 
 No chant is heard, no ceremonial seen. 
 No preacher but the grave. Relentless time. 
 Heavy thy tread, thy hand hath heavy been. 
 That scarce a bare foundation prints the green. 
 O death, all-eloquent (though slow is man ) 
 
 To hear thee), give us warning not to lean 
 On the bruised reed of earth, but while we can. 
 With faith and virtue fill of life the narrow span. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Wise, for a moment, was the Persian king. 
 Once weeping in ambition's mad career ; 
 For awful truth can to the proudest bring 
 At times conviction sudden and severe. , 
 Even now her monitory voice is here, 
 While to the distant sound of mirth and play 
 I listen with a melancholy car. 
 A little while, and all the young and gay 
 Shall slee]) witli the depurled, mule and cold as ihey.
 
 ^8 KILLAIINEY. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Wealth, power, ambition, every hope and joy. 
 Are but a dream, a toy of painted air, 
 The full-blown bubble of a playful boy : 
 And if thou canst, philosophy, declare 
 What more than this thy schemes and systems are. 
 But yet in Gilead may be found a stem : 
 That drops a balm for ever rich and rare ; ( 
 There is a priceless pearl, there is a gem | 
 That through eternity outshines the diadem. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Who would repine with such reward in view. 
 Or mourn the tenure frail of all below ? 
 Or vent the rueful plaint, how brief, how few. 
 How empty, all the pleasures we can know ? 
 Press onward, and look upward : let the glow 
 Of faith and hope be quickened into flame. 
 And charity be liberal to bestow. 
 Meantime, resume the world ; where shouts proclaim 
 On embarkation bent, peer, knight, esquire and dame.
 
 KILLARNEY. 89 
 
 LVI. 
 
 From Inisfallen to the tower of Ross 
 (Where Ludlow and Muskeny fought of yore) 
 The waning twilight warns and guides across 
 Our slow-returning squadrons to the shore. 
 While dirge-like gales the close of day dej)lore. 
 Soft glides the boat along : the waters foam 
 And sparkle to the dashing of the oar. 
 We land, we look a long farewel, and roam 
 With oft-reverted eye in pensive musing home. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Like the fond melancholy when we view 
 The floweret fade, or leaf in autumn fall, 
 Such the regret of parting and adieu. 
 Though hope, though pleasure, or though duty call. 
 The lot of time and chance is drawn by all. 
 And virtue's hope in heaven hath ever been ; 
 Yet scarce even virtue from this earthly ball 
 Can every thought, and all affection wean, 
 Till age and death iublil the final drop s^erene.
 
 90 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 In the last voyage, to the last abode. 
 When pass the pure in heart from care and pain, 
 From sorrow and from sin, life's weary load. 
 To mingle hallelujahs with the strain 
 Of seer and patriarch in th' empyreal fane. 
 Even then they pause, and ere they mount on high. 
 One look to the forsaken body deign; 
 While disinthrall'd from every earthly tie. 
 Impassive to decay and never more to die. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 New life commencing, they have thrown aside 
 The garment of mortality and woe : 
 And everlasting portals open wide 
 To welcome and imparadise them. Lo ! 
 Ascending and ascending up they go. 
 And leave the dwindling universe behind. 
 Man's universal debt in one brief throe 
 Was cancell'd ; and their spirits are enshrin'd 
 In beatific vision of th' Eternal Mind.
 
 KILLARNEY. 91 
 
 LX. 
 
 Dazzled and overpowered, with eye and ear 
 Yet uninitiate, they at first behold 
 Obscurely, and with doubtful organ hear 
 Their title in the Book of Life enroll'd ; -^ 
 Till gradually the realms of bliss unfold. 
 And the third heaven be vocal to the train 
 Of seraphim, that })alm and crown of gold 
 Presenting, hail tliem to th' ethereal plain. 
 In joy unutterable world without end to reign. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 What radiance flashes on their opening eye ! 
 What strains of transport fill their opening ear ! 
 See the Celestial City blaze on high, 
 And ringing through the universal sphere 
 The shout of archangelic voices hear. 
 Thousands of thousands, number without bound. 
 Wake the triumj)liant song of heaven's own year, i^ 
 And in mysterious liarmony around < 
 
 Ten thousand times ten thousand angel harps resound. *
 
 92 KILLARNEY. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Before them in augmenting glory's beam 
 Th' unfathomable azure melts away ; 
 While onward to the sanctuary supreme 
 Careering through th' infinitude of day. 
 They pour their souls into th' hierarchal lay 
 That circles evermore the mountain bright 
 Where sits whom saint nor angel can survey. 
 Too high, too glorious for created sight. 
 Throned unapproachable in mystery of light.
 
 CAMBUSCAN.
 
 CAMBUSCAN 
 
 FROM CHAUCER. 
 
 In Sarra (so tradition tells) of yore 
 Cambuscan the Tartarian sceptre bore. 
 And oft with battle and the bolts of war 
 Like hurricane assailed the Russian Tsar, 
 Till, spent with slauj^hter, on each others' breast 
 The long-contending empires sunk to rest. 
 From Palestine to China none was found 
 Like him for kingly attributes renowned : 
 Though Pagan born, he loved each pious rite. 
 And walked the best he could by reason's light :
 
 96 
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 (The best he could ; for liowsoe'er we boast, 
 Reason is but a glimmering lamp at most). 
 Wealthy he was, and wise, benign and just, 
 Firm to his word, and faithful to his trust ; 
 Of hardihood and warlike skill approved. 
 And courage as the centre unremoved ; 
 In arts, and arms, and manly beauty's prime, 
 The wonder of his people and his time ; 
 While well-deserved prosperity his throne 
 In fame upheld superior and alone. 
 
 Two sons he had by Elfeta his wife : 
 His elder born and heir hight Algarsife ; 
 And Camballo the younger prince's name ; 
 Each worthy of the sire from whom they came. 
 
 His youngest offspring was a daughter fair. 
 Called Canace ; whose stature, shape, and air. 
 And beauty to describe, my skill were vain ; 
 Nor dare I enterprise so high a strain. 
 To celebrate her praises would require 
 A tongue of hamiony and muse of fire ; 
 And such her loveliness as rightly sung 
 Would renovate the old, and madden all the young.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 97 
 
 Cambuscan now had twenty winters worn 
 The diadem, when on the festive morn 
 Of his nativity, from year to year 
 With pageants solemnized and royal cheer. 
 The heralds in procession took their way 
 Through Sarra to proclaim the welcome day. 
 
 Northward from Equinoctial Line the sun 
 Began through Aries his career to run, 
 And while he paced that hot and choleric sign. 
 The temperature so lusty and benign. 
 The tcnd(M- verdure, and the solar fire. 
 Awaked on every spray the feathered quire 
 To chant the melodies of young desire. 
 That to the balmy gales their transport told, 
 Delivei-ed from the sword of winter's cold. 
 
 Cambuscan in his palace sat full high. 
 Enrobed and crowned in royal majesty. 
 And his imperial feast all pomp excelled 
 Within the habitable globe beheld. 
 Of which should T describe the full array. 
 The tale would occupy u summer's day. 
 
 U
 
 98 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 With sewers and seneschals to crowd my rhime, 
 And swans, and hernshaws, were but waste of time : 
 Strange flesh (if legendary bards say true) 
 Is dainty there, which here we die to view. 
 The marshals and the service of the hall, 
 No mortal numbers can recount them all : 
 And (not in efforts vain my strength to waste) 
 I pass them by, and to my purpose haste. 
 
 The third course done, in his imperial state 
 The monarch 'midst his lords and ladies sat. 
 While all the pillars and the roof rebound 
 With thundering gongs, and the loud trumpets' sound, 
 A martial minstrelsy and merry din ; 
 When at the portal suddenly came in 
 A youthful warrior on a steed of brass. 
 And in his hand a mirror broad of glass. 
 Upon his thumb a golden ring he wore. 
 And swinging by his side a naked falchion bore ; 
 And up he rideth to the high state board. 
 While no man at the bancjuet spake a word 
 For wonder of this knight ; whom to behold 
 Full busily they gaze, both young and old.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 99 
 
 His beaver up, disclosed a visage fair. 
 Gorgeous his arms, majestic was his air. 
 While king and queen, and dames, and courtiers all 
 Salutes he by their order in the hall. 
 With reverence and observance so complete 
 As well in aspect as in utterance meet. 
 That Gawain, if returned from fairy ground. 
 With all his ancient courtesy renowned. 
 Could neither alter nor amend a word : 
 And after this, before the high state board. 
 With learned eloquence and grave regard. 
 And manly voice his message he declared, 
 And gesture such as grace and reason teach. 
 When speech with action, action suits with speech. 
 I cannot parle like that redoubted knight. 
 My genius is rebuked nor dares so high a flight ; 
 But this in common phrase was his intent, 
 If I remember right my argument. 
 
 The king whom Araby and Ind obey. 
 My lord and liege, on this illustrious day 
 Saluteth you, as best he can and may. 
 And sendeth you, in lionour of your feast, 
 By me wjio tlius attend on your behest, 
 
 u 2
 
 100 , CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 This steed of brass, that easily can run 
 Without delay or harm, 'twixt sun and sun, 
 (That is to say, in four and twenty hours) 
 Where'er you please, in sunshine or in showers. 
 Serene and swift his rider to convey 
 Whither your heart's desire directs the way ; 
 Or would you dart into the loftier air 
 With full security through foul or fair. 
 Where the sun-climbing eagle loves to soar. 
 The faithful voyager will ever more 
 The very course prescribed unerring keep, 
 Though on his back you take repose and sleep ; 
 And ever up and down, and to and fro. 
 Obsequious to your pleasure will he go. 
 Full many a constellation, many a sign, 
 Of potent influence and aspect benign, 
 The mighty master waited, ere he won 
 His moment, and this prodigy was done. 
 
 By looking on this mirror may be known 
 Whate'er adversity betides your crown ; 
 In shadow it reveals your friend or foe. 
 Your empire's welfare or your empire's woe :
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 101 
 
 And, more than this ; whenever lady bright 
 
 Hath deigned a tender thought of prince or knight, 
 
 If he prove false, it sets in open view 
 
 His fraud, his treason, and his mistress new. 
 
 Wear in your purse this ring, or on your hand. 
 And in a moment shall you understand 
 The languages of all the fowls that fly. 
 And how to make them suitable reply ; 
 And every med'cinable herb shall know 
 That heal the deadliest wounds, and where they grow. 
 
 Though adamantine arms oj)pose your might. 
 This trusty sword throuoh plate and mail will smite; 
 And for its lightest touch all aid is vain. 
 No styptics staunch the blood, no balms allay the pain. 
 Till with the flat you stroke the sufferei-'s wound ; 
 Then shall it close, and he again be sound: 
 Full well its use will vouch what I have told. 
 Nor ever fail, while you retain your hold. 
 
 This falchion hath Arabia's monarch sent. 
 The pledge to Tartary of good intent ;
 
 102 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 While with the virtuous ring and mirror rare 
 Your daughter Canace he greeteth fair. ^. 
 
 His message done, behold the youthful knight 
 Ride out of hall, and from his courser light. 
 His courser, flashing radiance like the sun. 
 Stands in the court (his airy travel done) : 
 The knight, unarm'd in an apartment fair. 
 Is summoned thence the royal feast to share. 
 The mirror and the sword of trenchant blade. 
 With pomp and long procession are conveyed. 
 And reverence as beseems their magic power. 
 And safely lodged in the high treasury tower ; 
 And the mysterious ring is borne in state 
 To Canace, at table where she sat. 
 But, sooth to say, the brazen courser stands 
 As bolted to the earth l)y unseen hands. 
 And engine, pulley, windlace, vainly boast 
 To wrench the stubborn wonder from his post. 
 For why ? they understand not yet the skill : 
 And in the court perforce they leave him still. 
 Until the knight the talisman unfold 
 To stir him, as hereafter shall be told.
 
 . CAMBUSCAN. 103 
 
 Great is the multitude, that to and IVo 
 About this steed in speculation go : 
 For in dimensions larg-e, high, broad, and long-, 
 And well proportioned to be swift and strong, 
 Majestical it stood, and quick of eye. 
 And the renowned Frontino might outvie, 
 Apulian breed, or horse of Lombardy. 
 From head to tail, in each proportion kennefl, 
 Nor art nor nature could his shape transcend. 
 
 But much they wondered how it came to pass 
 
 That motion should reside in horse of brass. 
 
 To most it seemed by fairy fingers wrought. 
 
 Yet every gazer had his several thought : 
 
 So many men, so many notions rise. 
 
 And each one in his own conceit is wise. 
 
 They murmured like a swarm of bees, and long 
 
 Recited acts of legendary song. 
 
 And Hippogrif, and Pegasus, and Troy, 
 
 Which ambushed Greeks in wooden horse annoy. 
 
 Mine heart (quoth one) is ever held in dread 
 By cares i'rom subtle circumspection bred.
 
 104 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 No doubt embattled legions are within. 
 Conspiring our metropolis to win. 
 Preposterous thought ! (another whispered low) 
 'Tis some mechanic toy or juggler's show. 
 Or fashioned underneath in caves of hell, 
 Domdaniel called, where fiends and wizards dwell. 
 So deem the vulgar of each engine wrought 
 With sapience that eludes their prying thought ; 
 And what their ignorance cannot comprehend. 
 Their spite interprets to the baser end. 
 
 Then spake they of the mirror's magic power. 
 That was borne up into the master tower : 
 If such phantasmas on its face were seen, 
 'Twas surely not of earth, nor wrought by hands 
 terrene. 
 
 Yet some believed by composition nice 
 Of angles, and of optical device, 
 It might be well and naturally done. 
 And that in Rome was such another one. 
 Of art, and algebra, and learned men, 
 And Aristotle, much they reasoned then ;
 
 CA.^IBUSCAN. 105 
 
 And how Alhazen and Vitelli wrote 
 Of specula, perspectives, and what not ? 
 As they who study their dark volumes wot. 
 
 Then talk they of the falchion that could drive 
 Through plate and mail, and stoutest metal rive. 
 Of Telephus, Achilles, and the steel 
 That could in turn inflict a wound, and heal : 
 And how to temper sword and spear they show ; 
 Craft which I know not, nor desire to know. 
 
 But for the ring- of Canace, they thought 
 Never such miracle to light was brought ; 
 Though some had heard of mickle wonder done 
 By Moses and the wise king Solomon. 
 
 Nathless, said some, it was a cunning pass 
 From flint and steel and ashes to make glass ; . 
 Yet glass is nothing like flint, ashes, sand ; 
 But hard things easy are to such as understand. 
 
 In doubt and queries thus their brains they tire. 
 So men the source and mystery require 
 Ol" wind, anti heaven's thought-executing (ire.
 
 106 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 And gossamer, and mist, and ocean's tide, 
 And all things, till their causes be descried. 
 
 Long time they argue, nor desist from brawl 
 Till king and courtiers leave the festive hall. 
 
 The sun had sunk from his meridian tower. 
 The Lion with his Aldrian ruled the hour. 
 When from his board the Tartar monarch rose : 
 The jocund minstrelsy before him goes. 
 Till in the presence-hall he sits on high. 
 And round him instruments and voices vie 
 In lofty lay, and heaven of melody. 
 
 The progeny of Venus now advance 
 With measure smooth and airy grace to dance : 
 For through the constellations rides their queen 
 And looks upon them with an eye serene. 
 
 The noble king is seated on his throne ; 
 The champion peregrine hath homage done. 
 And to the music's sound in lightsome glee 
 Adown the dance is gone with Canace.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 107 
 
 The revels that ensue are hard to show : 
 Love and love's service should the poet know. 
 And as the birds be blithe, and fresh as May, 
 Ere he describe a festival so gay. 
 
 Who can recite each brisk fantastic dance. 
 Each nymph-like shape, and lovely countenance. 
 Glances and amorous wiles and quaint disguise. 
 Elusive of the jealous lover's eyes ? 
 No man but Lancelot ; and he is dead : 
 So let them revel, and no more be said. 
 Till change of luxury to the banquet call, 
 I leave them in their stately carnival. 
 
 Amid their merriment the steward's care 
 Sends in the blood-red wine and spicery rare. 
 The servitors take post in every room. 
 The beverage and cates anon are come ; 
 They eat and drink, and then in solemn show 
 (As bids religion) to the temple go : 
 There vows, and service, and oblation pay. 
 Then palace-ward return, and sup by day.
 
 108 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 What need I Homer's savoury Muse unsphere 
 To sing their cookery and delicious cheer ? 
 Untold we guess that in a kingly feast 
 Is plenty, to the greatest and the least ; 
 And pageantry, as monarchs may beseem. 
 And dainties more than hungry poets dream. 
 
 From supper with his peers Cambuscan bold 
 Goes forth, the brazen courser to behold. 
 But never was such wondering sure as then. 
 Save when the horse of Sinon ambushed men. 
 And in amazement stood the Trojans all 
 While climbed the fatal engine o'er their wall. 
 At length the king. " Infonn me, gentle knight. 
 The virtue of this charger and the might. 
 And how to give him life, and bid |jim fly 
 Through unknown deserts, or th' ethereal sky." 
 
 "Sire," said the knight (and lightly touched the rein. 
 And instantly the coui'ser pranced amain), 
 " Touch but a spring (for such the hidden spell). 
 Which to your ear in secret I will tell ; 
 
 And name to him the pilgrimage designed : 
 Aloft he starts, and distances the wind.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 109 
 
 " Your journey ended, issue fresh command, 
 And to another s})rino' a])ply your hand. 
 And down he will descend and do your will. 
 And, where you list, inflexible stand still : 
 Nor all the world, though all the world sliould strive. 
 Can either lure him from his post or drive. 
 Or would you have him vanish hence anon. 
 Touch hut another spring and he is gone ' 
 Into unworldly regions from your sight, 
 And will return again by chiy or night, 
 When with such cabalistic words you cull 
 As I shall teach, his presence to your hall." 
 
 When thus Cambuscan from the strans'er kniaht 
 Had learned the manner and the form aright, 
 Triumj)hant to the palace he returns. 
 And with astonishment and rapture burns. 
 The bridle to the treasury tower with care 
 Is borne, and lodged among his jewels rare : 
 The horse is vanished from the haunts of man ; 
 \)u\ whither gone, or how, declare who can: 
 Let speculators, if they list explore; 
 For gone he is, and I reveal no more, >
 
 110 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 But leave the Tartar nobles with their king^ 
 In revelry, till day began to spring. 
 
 Slumber, digestion's nurse, came then apace. 
 And kissed with gaping mouth each ruby face : 
 The drowsy charm convinced them in a trice 
 All day and half the night might well suffice 
 To keep their rouse ; and warned them for their good 
 That sleep asserts domain o'er flesh and blood. 
 Yawning they give him thanks, and for the best 
 His doctrine hold, and reel away to rest. 
 
 What night-mare dreams ensued, concerns not me. 
 Most part were staggering-ripe with jollity ; 
 And heavy floundered down, and rose not soon. 
 Snoring in lubbard lethargy till noon. 
 
 Cambuscan's self had long held wassail gay. 
 Yet yielded not to wine's ignoble sway : 
 Nor Algarsife nor Camballo resigned 
 To brute intemperance the manly mind ; 
 But when the herald-star of morning rose. 
 Betook them cool and lightsome to repose.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 1 ^ 1 
 
 Fair Canace had (with her father's leave) 
 From banquet drawn to rest soon after eve. 
 Shunning the nightly surfeit, morning pains. 
 Of fevered pulse and fume-bewildered brains. 
 She slept ; but such her fulness of content. 
 That even in sleep her colour came and went. 
 The ring, the glass, were present to her thought. 
 And peradventure elfin fancy brought 
 The blooming knight of Araby to view. 
 Amorous, and by the mirror witnessed true. 
 From aery-light first slumber she awoke. 
 And to her prime attendant matron spoke. 
 And said it was her pleasure to arise. 
 
 Th€ wrinkled crone, who deemed herself more wise 
 (As beldames use) than all the world beside, 
 With undesired remonstrance thus replied. 
 " Madam, the morn is young, the world at rest ; 
 A little slumber more were surely best." 
 
 " Not so," quoth Canace : "my sleep is fled ; 
 The breezy morn is balm, the sky is red. 
 And health and pleasure bid me walk or run 
 Where yonder forest brightens in the sun."
 
 112 
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 The much-reluctant dame goes forth to vent 
 In simulated zeal her discontent. 
 From room to room explores the lofty halls. 
 And " what ? no watch, no duty ?" loudly calls. 
 " Arise, for shame, your princess takes the air." 
 They hear, and to her presence-room repair. 
 Fresh, smiling, bright, and ruddy as the sun 
 When orient thi'ough the vernal sky to run. 
 See Canace advance in light array 
 For coolness fit, or speed, or mirthful play. 
 And with her virgin bevy o'er the lawn 
 And woodlands bound, exulting in the dawn. 
 
 The sun with ample orb of crimson sheen 
 Scattered the mist and gemmed the dewy green ; 
 The season mild, the firmamental blue. 
 The park, rock, stream, the mountain's distant view. 
 All art, all nature, prodigal inspired 
 Joy more than heart had imaged or desired. 
 But chief delight was in the thrilling song 
 From glade and thicket of the plumy throng : 
 For well the gifted princess could descry 
 Their speech and argument of melody.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. ll"^ 
 
 Not lon;T> (lid Cnnace transported rove, 
 Hearkening^ th' harmonious converse of the grove. 
 When from a plantain, blasted, dry, and bare, 
 A falcon shrieked in accents of despair. 
 So long, so shrill, that the disastrous sound 
 Awaked each echo of the forest round, 
 And wounded so with beak and wings her side, 
 That all the ground beneath with blood vras dyed. 
 Her plaint so rueful, and so loud her moan. 
 That savage beast, or hardest heart of stone. 
 Hyaena, tyger, pard, or lion bold. 
 Had wept (if weep they could) her sorrow to beliold. 
 
 For never l)ard or painter could describe 
 A lovelier model of tlie falcon tribe. 
 Short legs, large feet, broad shoulders, and thighs long; 
 Round head, long neck, beak thick and short and 
 
 strong ; 
 Her feet were yellow, and litr ] jounces l)lack, 
 Sable her head, and spotted was her back : 
 In colour, shape, and spirit passing rare, 
 Perfection's self, she ballled all < oni])are.
 
 ^ 14 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 But Canace, dissolved in pity, hies 
 Up to the tree, and each enticement tries 
 To lure (if hope of remedy might be) 
 The well-nigh fainting mourner from the tree ; 
 And holds her lap abroad, or ere she call, 
 To catch her, and arrest the giddy fall ; 
 And thus in language of the falcon kind 
 Gives utterance to her sympathizing mind. 
 
 "Fair bird, if lawful to disclose thy pain. 
 The cause and origin of woe explain : 
 For never yet such tempest of distress 
 I saw, so seeming desperate of redress ; 
 And needs that anguish beyond thought must be. 
 Whose very spectacle is death to see. 
 For mercy's sake, whatever pangs annoy. 
 Desist, nor thus that tender frame desti'oy ; 
 And kill me not with sorrow for thy sake. 
 But listen, and descend, and comfort take : 
 For, as I am the daughter of a king. 
 Relief no less than soothing will I bring, 
 If labour, skill, or any power of mine 
 May alter and assuage the fates malign ; 
 Thrice happy, if composing every smart
 
 CAMBUSCAN. II; 
 
 Of wound or bruise, 1 could as soon impart 
 The balm of consolation to thine heart." 
 
 This heard, the falcon screaming from the tree. 
 Fell senseless in the lap of Canace : 
 And lying long as one entranced or dead. 
 At length revived, and slowly raised her head ; 
 And with full many a tear and many a sigh 
 Unfolded thus her wayward destiny. 
 
 " Compassion evermore and virtue find 
 Their native dwelling in the noble mind. 
 Those tears, my gentle Canace, I know 
 From sweet and undissembling pity flow : 
 And therefore, though the sorrows I endure 
 Be past the reach of solace or of cure, 
 Yet while thy soft suggestions I attend, 
 Methinks a kind rod spirit calls me friend ; 
 And howsoe'er uncouth, nor worth thine car, 
 Yet freely flows my tale from heart sincere. 
 
 " Though with my feathered sisters of the sky 
 Through cloud and tempest now condemned 1<> lly, 
 
 I 2
 
 116 
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 Though chambered in the rock of marble gray, 
 And instinct-driven to rend my quivering- prey. 
 Yet pity once I knew, nor would have harmed 
 The smallest living thing in air or earth that swarmed ; 
 For human birth was mine, and human frame, 
 Till in perfidious love destruction came. 
 
 " By misery driven from his parental home 
 In life's eventful pilgrimage to roam. 
 My sire had heard the Russian ice-wind blow. 
 And felt the summers of Serendib glow ; 
 Had hailed the palaces of orient morn, 
 And seen departing suns the western main adorn. 
 The manners and the laws of every clime 
 He marked, and chronicles of hoary time. 
 And in the search of wisdom hoped to find 
 Repose and medicine for his wounded mind ; 
 Till, pilgrimage and toil and danger past. 
 In Persia's meads he found repose at last ; 
 There guarded, reared and blest my tender age 
 With fond endearment and monition sage. 
 And strove my ripening intellect to store 
 With truth and fortitude, iind virtue's lore.
 
 ca:mbuscan. 
 
 117 
 
 Of regions far remote, and days of old, 
 And wonders in the height and depth he told, 
 Of nature's fabric and all-perfect scheme. 
 And boundless goodness of the Cause supreme. 
 
 " But when my fifteenth year began to shed 
 Its inauspicious influence o'er my head, 
 A neighbouring youth, Faradatha his name, 
 Enkindled in my breast aftection's flame ; 
 Equal our age, alike our tempers seemed, 
 And each on each a mutual passion beamed. 
 His strength and courage, countenance and mind, 
 Whate'er ennobles or adorns mankind, 
 Were all, save virtue, noble and complete ; 
 And virtue's self he knew to counterfeit 
 In goodliest semblance, though represt within 
 Corruption lurked, and woe-engendering sin. 
 He sighed, he kneeled, remorseless to deceive. 
 Vowed spotless truth, and won mc to believe. 
 Next heaven and my dear father, I relied 
 On him, my future spouse, companion, guide ; 
 His image was in every thought and care. 
 The morning orison and evening prayer. 
 And oft, by sadly-pleasing fear distrest. 
 Anxious I questioned my self-doubting breast.
 
 118 
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 What lecompence could answer or repay 
 His faithful fondness and protecting sway. 
 Vain dream, vain happiness, reverse how fell. 
 How doubly keen from one beloved so well. 
 
 "Twelve moons, twelve blissful moons, the dear 
 deceit — 
 (Ah ! why the vanished happiness repeat ?) 
 Twelve fleeting moons so well the traitor feigned, 
 A free confession with my heart he gained : 
 Till in vain-glorious confidence secure 
 That love would all forgive and all endure. 
 Darkly and by degrees he did unroll 
 The complicated baseness of his soul ; 
 And languishing complained of love too coy, 
 And talked of stolen hours enhancing joy : 
 Now on my hand with eager glances hung. 
 Now to the melting lute insidious sung 
 Of honour needing not the legal chain. 
 And pity justly due to amorous pain. 
 What folly were to waste the precious time. 
 How wise to crown with bliss our beauty's prime.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 119 
 
 "Amazed, and doubtful if I heard aright. 
 My bosom throbbed with anger and affright ; 
 Yet hood-vvink'd long and wavering was my fear. 
 Slow to suspect, and loth to seem austere : 
 My partial wishes still with reason strove. 
 And indignation more than half was love. 
 He, prompt with blandishment and specious wile 
 To say, unsay, and thousand ways beguile. 
 Long time with indefatigable art 
 Essayed each weaker entrance to my heart : 
 But when his countless artifices vain 
 Served only to confirm my just disdain. 
 And steel insulted tenderness to abjure 
 With sad and solemn vows his love impure. 
 He groaned, he trembled, gazed with frantic air, 
 And wept and smote his breast and tore his hair. 
 Then fled, and everlasting absence swore ; 
 And false Faradatha was seen no more. 
 
 " But as he went sky loured, and nature frowned 
 Earth groaned, and winds re-murmured doleful sound, 
 The wootllands reeled, l)y hurricanes bclosl. 
 The dav was sicklied o'er, the sun was lost.
 
 120 
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 Black clouds of thunder roared, and sudden glare 
 
 Of lightning flashed athwart the troubled air. 
 
 And sailing on the gloom a grisly form 
 
 Was seen to guide with outstretched hand the storm. 
 
 His aspect hideous, his dimensions vast, 
 
 His eyeballs fire, his voice the northern blast ; 
 
 Above my head he waved a gleaming brand. 
 
 And issued thus his merciless command. 
 
 " * Fond Rezia ! shall Faradatha descend 
 A frustrate sujjpliant at thy feet to bend ? 
 Thy groveling baseness shall the marriage rite 
 With his monarchal destinies unite? 
 Him, by his pride and fierce ambition known. 
 Long since the rebel Genii hailed their own ; 
 And gave him privilege of magic skill 
 To change his blooming loveliness at will 
 For giant-sinewed strength, and heart of stone. 
 And iron flesh, and adamantine bone. 
 Thus nei-ved, invincible he flies to war. 
 And mocks the steed, the falchion, and the car ; 
 Victory where'er he turns salutes him lord. 
 And empires rise or perish at his word ;
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 121 
 
 Till satiate with renown and kingly power 
 
 He seek repose in Savendrooga's bower. 
 
 Where lurks (O why am I constrained to tell i') 
 
 The secret of his stars, the master spell. 
 
 On which (how dense, futurity, thy gloom, 
 
 How dark thy menace ! ) hangs our champion's doom. 
 
 He loves thee, Rezia, but his fates ordain 
 
 That never shall he wear the nuptial chain ;' 
 
 For they who with our freeborn host combine 
 
 Must laugh to scorn laws human and divine. 
 
 Consent, and yield to his protecting arms 
 
 In unrestrained love thy willing charms ; 
 
 Else — but I see expostulation vain 
 
 With that coy virtue and obdured disdain. 
 
 Go then — and exiled by a vengeful change 
 
 From peace and hope, the w ilds of aether rauL^e : 
 
 Till with the tongue of Ijirds thou canst disclose 
 
 To human ear the story of thy woes. 
 
 Till falls Faradatha, by mortal wight 
 
 Encountered, slain, on Savendrooga's height ; 
 
 And one of woman born shall haml to iiuntl 
 
 Domdaniel's legionod soceries withstand."
 
 122 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 " He threatened ; and ere yet his words had end, 
 I felt convulsion strange my bosom rend. 
 Through vein and artery ran the wicked spell. 
 Filled me with cruelty and hunger fell, 
 Embruted all my shape, and upward drove 
 Beneath heaven's chilling canopy to rove. 
 And outcast of mankind effuse my moan 
 To the rude wind and the deaf mountain stone. 
 Nine moons have marked the dismal lapse of time 
 Since first I winged the bleak ethereal clime. 
 Yet helpless still I wander, and bewail 
 My childless sire and happy native dale : 
 Nor guardian ministers their aid impart. 
 Nor death vouchsafes to heal the broken heart." 
 
 The falcon ceased, and all the virgin train 
 With tears of pity answered her again. 
 But the kind princess, tutored by her ring, 
 Sought every balm, and anodyne of spring, 
 Till having herbs of sovereign virtue found 
 To staunch and mollify each rankling wound. 
 Back to the palace eagerly she bore 
 The bleeding bird and salutary store:
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 123 
 
 Then bade an ample aviary prepare, 
 
 And nursed tlie sufferer with a sister's care. 
 
 And ceaseless toiled (compassion gave her skill) 
 
 To soften and beguile the sense of ill. 
 
 Fair Canace ! thy name and praise shall live : 
 
 Blest they who pity win, thrice-double blest who give. 
 
 And now my spirit (or I much misdeem) 
 Dilates and soars with my majestic theme ; 
 And henceforth statelier process will T hold 
 To sing adventure, tourney, battle bold. 
 And wonders such as never yet were told.
 
 ELTAS TTYDROCROUS, 
 
 % ^arrrlf Brtima.
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Ahab, King of Israel. 
 
 Abdias, Governor of the household. 
 
 Chorus, of faithful Israelites. 
 
 Priests of Baal. 
 
 People. 
 
 Messenger, Servant of Elias. 
 
 Scene. — At the foot of Mount Carmel, near the brook 
 
 Kishon.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 How slow is time, how wearisome tlie way. 
 When hope deferred lies heavy at the heart. 
 But see our journey's end ; the tufted brake 
 Of juniper, and yonder lofty rock 
 That overshadowint^- throws his pendulous bulk 
 O'er Kislion's nigh-exhausted stream, is this 
 Th' appointed station, Abdias ? art thon snrp, 
 And sure that he will come i' Again repeat 
 The tidings : for my soul unsatisfied 
 Craves still assurance more.
 
 128 
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 My lord and king, 
 At thy command I traversed hill and dale 
 Of Israel's realm, if haply from the l)last 
 And three years' drought a pittance had escaped 
 Of forage that might save the royal steeds 
 Of pageantry and war : but long the search. 
 And frustrate all ; day after day the sun 
 Cloudless arose, and fired the sky, and parched 
 The gaping earth ; each watercourse was dry. 
 Each breeze the breath of furnace ; and the soil 
 Loose as the sandy wilderness, upflew 
 In clouds before the wind. O'erspent, and full 
 Of rumination sad, at length I came 
 Where now we tread : when 'thwart the twiliglit 
 
 dusk 
 Of day-dawn, in corporeal form revealed. 
 The prophet sought so oft, from realm to realm 
 With fruitless search, so long on earth unseen, 
 Slowly approached me, nor could I mistake 
 That majesty of countenance and form 
 Surpassing human : and the very voice 
 And utterance of Elias in mine ears
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 129 
 
 Resounded, while with brief and solemn speech 
 
 He thus began. " Haste, Abdias, to thy king. 
 
 And certify whom thou hast seen, and add. 
 
 In presence visible Elias comes, 
 
 To give him meeting here." With prostrate awe 
 
 I fell, and thus returned. " Command not so. 
 
 Nor bid me with such dangerous embassy 
 
 Possess the royal ear. When I am gone. 
 
 The spirit shall sequester thee far hence, 
 
 I know not whither ; and my sovereign's ire. 
 
 When coming at my call he finds thee not. 
 
 Shall doom me to the death." The prophet heard. 
 
 And thus replied. " As liveth He, the Lord 
 
 Of Hosts, by whom, and before whom I stand. 
 
 Assuredly to Ahab, here, this day 
 
 Will I appear." Emboldened thus, I rose. 
 
 And came (not uninfonned of tliine approach) 
 
 To utter his behest : for on the way 
 
 Already rumour to mine ears had borne 
 
 Thy pilgrimage to Carmel, with the priests 
 
 Of Baalim, and mighty concourse called 
 
 From every tribe, to celebrate tlie rite 
 
 Sidonian, and from heathen gods implore 
 
 Refreshing rain. K
 
 130 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 It looks like truth : and yet 
 I scarce believe for joy. He is the last 
 Of those rebellious, who defiance hurled 
 To Astaroth, and mocked my radiant queen 
 Even at her altars : therefore have they fallen 
 Beneath the sword ; and he, the chief, the worst. 
 The sole survivor, shall at length be mine. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Yet think : he is the prophet of the Lord, 
 Of Him whose stern denunciation binds 
 The clouds in iron, shuts the treasure-house 
 Of rain and dew, and three long years hath sent 
 A famine o'er the land : and wilt thou more 
 Incense the dread Chastiser ? 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Am I son 
 Of Omri, before whom the knee was bowed 
 In Gabathon, and am I Israel's king ?
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 131 
 
 And am I to be baffled thus, and braved 
 And bearded by a frantic slave ? How oft 
 In grove or temple, festival or fast. 
 Hath he rebuked me like a bondman, taxed 
 My worship with idolatry, laid curse 
 On my possessions, poisoned my repose 
 With threats of judgment. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 His indeed the tongue. 
 But whose the bidding ? the mysterious trance 
 Was on him, and he heard the voice divine. 
 And visions of Jehovah sanctified 
 His fiery lips, and sent him to reprove 
 Israel's apostasy. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Sent or unsent, 
 This day he dies : the congregated i)rime 
 Of all my people, all that to the sun. 
 The moon and stars burn incense, shall behold 
 His blood (a welcome expiation) flow, 
 
 K 2
 
 132 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Peace-offerino^ to the violated fame 
 Of all my gods. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 But where the shrine is reared 
 For that dire sacrifice, chained thunderbolts 
 In fury shall descend, or earth beneath 
 Open to her foundations, and entomb 
 .The murderous pomp. Posterity shall shrink 
 From the detested region, whose convulsed 
 And blackened solitudes shall utter sound 
 Of woe in sinful ears, and chronicle 
 The wrath supreme. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Peace ; and speak never more. 
 Rather than so : the world and all its wealth 
 Would I resign, so I had nothing heard 
 Of all that was divulged on Sinai's mount 
 In fire and thunder. What is fame to me. 
 Or power, or empire, but an empty dream.
 
 ELI AS HYDROCHOUS. 133 
 
 The mockery of a bliss I may not taste. 
 
 If saws and ordinances are to curb 
 
 My royalties ; if when desire and hope ... 
 
 And birth-right and dominion loudest call 
 
 To plunge amid the warm voluptuous flood 
 
 Of pomp and luxury ; if then the laws 
 
 And lore traditional of Amram's son 
 
 Rush upon memory, peopling all the brain 
 
 With prodigies and threatenings that might drive 
 
 The soul from seat of reason ? And if e'er 
 
 My better hopes have triumphed, and I know 
 
 And feel myself a king, and taste the sweets 
 
 Of monarchy, thy bodings come to rouse 
 
 The sleeping anguish ? How hast thou ])resumed, 
 
 Slave as thou art, to dally with the cares 
 
 Of my most inward soul, the bosom terror 
 
 Intolerable, that cankers my high fortune, 
 
 And palsies empire ? Better be a worm 
 
 Than Israel's king, and scorned as I am scorned 
 
 By this Elias. Long ago the sword 
 
 Of majesty had smitten to the dust 
 
 The upbraiding traitor, feared I not the wrath 
 
 Of Him who plunged Abiram and his peers 
 
 Alive into the abyss. That dreadful arm
 
 ^34 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Again may thunder, and at once exile me 
 From all the joys of sense, from all T prize 
 Or covet, to the pestilent profound 
 Of darkness and corruption. 'Tis a thought 
 May not be dwelt upon ; nor may I waste 
 The moments in vain musing, when so much 
 Is to be done — haste, Abdias, and convoke 
 The people ; bid them wait in readiness 
 Our great solemnity ; then hither ax\l 
 To present divination and consult 
 The priests of Baal. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 To consult with tliem 
 Is adding ill to ill. They smile and lure 
 With honeyed blandishment, but never knew 
 What truth or virtue mean. O rather turn 
 Where better guides approach : the chosen few 
 Of all thy counsellors, who never swerved 
 From the j^ure law of Horeb, never bowed 
 The knee to Remphan, nor profaned the faith 
 Of Abraham and of Moses, hither bend 
 Tlieir reverend steps.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 135 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 No more of this : begone. 
 And do as I commanded. Who are ye 
 That break my privacy ? The king demands 
 To know your pleasure ; wherefore ye intrude 
 Uncalled, importunate, unwelcome ; fraught 
 With admonition and predicted ill ? 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Gray hairs have privilege : and when the storms 
 Roar in their madness, welcome any hand 
 That can to safety steer. Thy kingdom mourns 
 Beneath the yoke and penalty of sin. 
 And sin must be repented of, ere grace 
 Or mercy can find way. Let public prayer 
 And penitence for public guilt atone. 
 That we may be forgiven, and once again 
 Behold and bless the life-imparting sliower. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 This then is all ; and ye have fondly dreamed 
 The monarchy of Israel slept supine
 
 136 EI IAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Regardless of his realm : but I had done 
 The deed, ere ye had ripened into thought. 
 The fast hath been proclaimed : already comes 
 From Jezreel hither all my state, the priests 
 Of Baal, and the prophets of the groves. 
 And crowds processional by herald's trump 
 From Dan to Bethel called. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 O never, never 
 Can lips or rites like these acceptance find. 
 Or safety : v/herefore come they but to breathe 
 Their orisons before the senseless block 
 And molten image ? God of Abraham, hear ; 
 Have pity on thy people, and withdraw 
 The scourge of our impiety. 
 
 Ahab, 
 
 'Tis well 
 And wisely spoken ; go then, and invoke 
 His tenderness, who three successive years 
 Hath interdicted heaven, and changed to flame 
 Its liquid treasures : such his benison.
 
 ELIAS IIYDROCHOUS. 137 
 
 And such his mercy past, and such the pledge 
 Of mercy yet to come. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 < 
 
 We render thanks 
 Even for the punishment of guilt, and bless 
 The fatherly corrections that drive back 
 The wanderer to his God. Not undeserved 
 Nor unforeseen the sharp infliction fell : 
 Long time the stroke hung over us, long time 
 Elias warned. • 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Accursed be the name. 
 It haunts me in the j)alace, at the altar, 
 My solitude embitters, and appals 
 My slumber. The remembrance of that chiy 
 Is a full nest of scorpions, when my queen 
 Had newly slain the prophets, and sublime 
 At banc[uet sat we throned, amid the j)omp 
 Of nobles, warriors, priests of Terapliim, 
 Exulting o'er the dead : magnificence 
 And joy unbounded reigned ; when suddenly
 
 138 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 In at the portal, like a spectre came 
 The seer of Thoschab : haggard were his eyes 
 That measured us in anger ; vengeance loured 
 On his demoniac brow : the mirth was dumb. 
 The music ended, and our quivering knees 
 Against each other smote, as with a voice 
 That curdled up our blood, he thus began. 
 " Blasphemers, murderers, revel in your deeds, 
 Heap sin on sin, but know that ye are marked 
 For judgment; know that barrenness and drought 
 Are hasting to consume you. Till the tongue 
 That now denounces vengeance change its note 
 To gentle intercession, and implore 
 Remission of the doom, no rain shall bless 
 The day, nor ever dew by night descend." 
 He ceased, and vanished. From that fatal hour 
 The clouds have been dried up, and earth beneath 
 Languishing withers. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 When the nations reel 
 Drunk with idolatry, drunk with the blood 
 Of innocence, then issue plague and sword.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 i39 
 
 Famine and fire ; and children's children rue 
 Their sacrilegious fathers. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Insolent ! 
 Be mute when I command thee ; and no more 
 Assay before the footstool to abase me. 
 Of whom the patriarchs worshipped. I despair 
 Pardon from him whose stern ambassadors 
 To me speak never good. Time was, percliance. 
 When seasonable instruction might have trained 
 My spirit to the legal ordinance. 
 And taught me to confide in oracle, 
 By TTrim given and Thummim : but that time 
 Long since is jjast : long since have I resigned 
 To pleasure, and irrevocably chosen 
 The gay devotion of Ethbaal's realm. 
 That beckons me to sprightlier ceremonies. 
 Each sense alluring, and each wish fulfilling. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Refulgent sun, declare 
 
 'J'he fountain of thy glory, and ihe Power
 
 140 
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 That gives thee to career in light and joy 
 
 From the pavilions of the morn 
 
 To where the crimson Occident 
 
 O'erhangs th' immeasurable sea. 
 
 Mazaroth, ye that bind 
 
 In mystic orb of constellated fires 
 
 The seasons and their change, 
 
 And all ye stellar guardians of the night. 
 
 Ye lamps that burn along the road to heaven. 
 
 Resound your Maker's praise : 
 
 And ye, the thousand times ten thousand. 
 
 That ministrant around the thunderous throne 
 
 In adoration bow. 
 
 Proclaim, for ye were present, and beheld 
 
 How from the womb of chaos and of night 
 
 Innumerable worlds arose 
 
 Obedient to Jehovah's call : 
 
 And ye beheld when at his look of doom 
 
 The doors and fountains of the deep 
 
 Were broken up, and desolation rode 
 
 Upon the boundless ocean that devoured 
 
 Earth and the generations of mankind, 
 
 Can deities of wood and stone 
 
 To th' unholy prayer and vow
 
 ELIAS HYDKOCHOUS, 
 
 Give audience or reply ? 
 
 The chiselled block derides 
 
 Its own besotted worshipper, 
 
 Who for the hewn similitude 
 
 Of monster, brute and fiend, 
 
 And loathly shapes and fantasies 
 
 Of superstition's brain. 
 
 Forsakes the Holy One of Israel, 
 
 Whose arm at Baal-zephon sepulchred 
 
 Proud Egypt in the deep, 
 
 And smiting- Jordan's flood, 
 
 Dry-shod led his people through. 
 
 While from his presence in affright 
 
 The hills and mountains fled. 
 
 He dashed the walls of Jericho to dust, 
 
 And barbed with hail the clouds, 
 
 And bade their archery at Betli-horon quell 
 
 The puissance of confederate kings, 
 
 And held the sun suspense 
 
 On Gibeon, and the moon in Ajalon, 
 
 And swelled the horned might of Kishon's flood 
 
 To whelm the steeds and cars of Sisera. 
 
 Deluded sinners ! turn. 
 
 Renounce your idols, and repent 
 
 141
 
 J 42 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 While mercy may be found. 
 
 Lest inextinguishable fire 
 
 Consume you, and your memory leave 
 
 Detestable to latest age, 
 
 Like the salt pillar in that blasted plain, 
 
 Where stood Gomorrah, still beheld 
 
 A monumental woe. ' 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Provoke me not too far, lest I forget 
 
 Your utter worthlessness, how far beneath 
 
 The scope of my revenge ; beware the sword 
 
 Which indignation hath already half 
 
 Unsheathed to smite you. Ah ! why reels the frame 
 
 Of nature, what unwonted shadowing veils 
 
 The cheerful dawn ? 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 I hear a rushing sound 
 Of whirlwind, and the mountains disappear. 
 In eddying smoke involved ; and 'mid the gloom 
 I see — or is it all illusion ? No ;
 
 ELIAS IIYDROCnOUS. 143 
 
 'Tis he : his very self. Hail, long- withliekl. 
 And sought with tears, our lost Elias ! hail. 
 Interpreter of heaven ! 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Stern destiny 
 Hath borne him in the chariot of the winds. 
 And clad him with invulnerable arms : 
 The supernatural visiting confounds 
 And vanquishes : I tremble, and my limbs 
 Sink under me. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Rise, Ahab, king of Israel, 
 And look upon me : He who brought me hither 
 Is passed by, and leaves thee to converse 
 As man with man. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Take courage, prince, and hold 
 The eventful colloquy : for on his brow 
 (Tliough mournful and austere) compassion dwells.
 
 144 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Stand back ; and meddle not with things too hiofh 
 For thee ; but carry thy vain babble hence 
 To where 'tis needed. Be it mine to face 
 The sudden foe. And art thou found, O thou 
 That troublest Israel ? 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Say not I am he 
 That troubleth Israel : their own sins, and thine 
 And of thy father's house, when ye forsook 
 The Lord your God, and followed Baalim, 
 Drew down the devastation. Mine were words 
 Of prophecy and message more than prayer. 
 But whatsoe'er they were, I did but speak 
 By prompture of the Spirit : his the voice 
 That barred the ethereal citadels, and shut 
 The windows of the rain. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 What pastime then 
 To thee and to thy God : the rivers dry.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 145 
 
 The harvest parclied, the vintages on tire, 
 The cry of orphans and the widow's groan : 
 Thyself in vaporous tabernacle veiled. 
 To range unseen at pleasure, and peruse 
 Our miseries, and bemock our lengthened woe. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Bear witness, earth and heaven, if ever j)rince 
 
 In clemency his servants so forbore. 
 
 If ever father so unwilling smote 
 
 His disobedient children, as the Lord 
 
 Hath smitten Israel. Forty years he gave 
 
 His guardian presence in the wilderness, 
 
 Poured down the food of angels on your host. 
 
 Sent often his empyreal messengers 
 
 On embassies of love, and warned you oft 
 
 By judge and seer ; yet Him have ye renounced 
 
 For idols and for fiends. O had ye fallen 
 
 Into the hands of man, and had tlie wratli 
 
 Of God been sudden as the choleric heat 
 
 Of sublunary princes, long ago 
 
 All Israel in the sepulchre had slept. 
 
 Silence and night their covering, an<i tlif worm 
 
 L
 
 146 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Their winding sheet : or had Jehovah dealt 
 Strictly with your desert, a thousand years 
 Of sickness, famine, pestilence^ and war, 
 Your cities sacked, your mountain garrisons 
 Scaled like a vulture's nest, your fields despoiled. 
 Your young men slain, your elders captive led. 
 Your infants dashed on stones, or perishing 
 Abortive in the womb, had not atoned 
 The vast offence : for all our history 
 Is lust, oppression, devil-sacrifice, 
 Age after age, from the rebellious routs 
 In Marah and Rephidim, to that day 
 Of blasphemy, when thy remorseless queen, 
 Ethbaal's blood-delighting daughter, slew 
 The prophets of the Lord. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 No : swallow down 
 That false and foul reproach again ; for well 
 Thou knowest, all perished not. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Wherefore not all ? 
 Was that thy mercy ? Was it the relenting
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 147 
 
 Of Ahab and of Jezebel, that saved 
 A remnant from the sword ? Not one ye spared 
 Of all that could be found ; and had ye known 
 Their place of refuge, and the pious hand 
 That rescued them, the rest had perished too. 
 And with them tlieir preserver : but his name 
 Is registered for a reward on high. 
 And known to God alone. Well have ye taught 
 Lessons of slaughter, and the people well 
 Have profited : like eagles from afar 
 They stoop upon the quarry, more athirst 
 For blood the more they gorge ; and day by day 
 From city drive to city, scarce in rocks 
 Secure, in forest, mountain, cave, or den. 
 The witnesses of Truth. How few are left \ 
 That still hold fast obedience, and adore ^ 
 The Lord Most High ! l-^ 
 
 Ahah. 
 
 Yet those elect, their God 
 Abandons to tlieir fate : no manna falls 
 Around their dwelling, nor the luscious quail 
 
 L 2
 
 148 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Upon their habitation, as of" old 
 Amid the wilderness : no water-brook 
 For them uprises, nor the rain and dew 
 In sign of favour plenteousness impart. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Are quails and manna, water-brook and rain. 
 All, or the best of all he can bestow ? 
 There is a sustenance, there is a gift 
 That savours not of earth, nor harbours taint 
 Of earth's corruption, but can smooth the brow 
 Of penury and pain, and light up smiles 
 Upon the cheek of death : there is a hope 
 Outsoars mortality ; there is a faith 
 Lays hold on bliss celestial. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Specious hypocrite. 
 Easy for thee to fable and to vaunt 
 Of hope and faith, exempted as thou art 
 From suffering : thirst and hunger reach not thee, 
 For whom protecting Providence hath spread 
 A table in the desert : thou canst look
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 149 
 
 Serene on Israel's woe, while thine the smooth 
 And ])leasant office, to prescribe content. 
 And dictate how salubrious are the stripes 
 That touch not thee. 
 
 » 
 Elias. 
 
 And is it nothin<^ then 
 That I am torn from my paternal fields, 
 From family and home, in banishment 
 Houseless to wander ? Nothing- then to live 
 A thing forbidden, pining in the lair 
 Of savage berst, remote from man, cut off 
 From social intercourse P Or wouldst thou change 
 For dreariment like this thy regal pomp 
 And luxury, leave thy soft voluptuous coucli 
 To pillow thee on rocks, thy sumptuous board 
 To diet with the ravens, or thy domes 
 With cedar lined, and painted with vermillion. 
 For savage solitudes and antrcs wild ? 
 Earth and earth's conii'orts, what are tliey to me 
 Who scarce partake man's nature, nor may tread 
 The common patlis of death ? But not for this 
 I came, not idly to hold argument
 
 150 
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 With guilt that will not learn : but to display 
 In action, and proof palpable, the power 
 Of heaven's omnific Sire. Immediate call 
 The multitude that waits thee from each tribe 
 Of Israel, and to present issue bring 
 The strife of God with idols : let this day 
 Determine which the God that answer gives 
 By sign miraculous : and if not to me 
 Such answer be vouchsafed, then let me die. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Ha ! is it so P and under the fair show 
 
 Of bold defiance lurks no fraudful snare? 
 
 Is there no secret peril, is no charm 
 
 Inwoven with thy life ? and if I take 
 
 The forfeiture, shall no blood-vestured plague, 
 
 •No afterbirth of ill the deed avenge ? 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Are then thy gods so feeble, that a spell 
 Can baffle them ? Not so the Holy One 
 Omnipotent, before whose judgment-seat 
 And in whose hand once more I make appeal.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 151 
 
 If miracle attest me not this day 
 Ambassador of God, be instant death 
 My lot ; nor Sidon's realm, nor Israel's tribes. 
 Nor thou nor thine shall ever rue the doom. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Moth and Beclphegor, rejoicing hear ! 
 
 I did Init wisli ; and fortune hath iulfilled 
 
 My utmost heart's desire : and see the priests 
 
 Of Baalim, by Abdias led, advance 
 
 Already : Abdias, measure back thy steps, 
 
 And bid expectant Israel to this place 
 
 Assemble straight. Ye prophets of the groves. 
 
 Behold your enemy, so long pursued 
 
 Through many a realm, while issued not a vdice 
 
 From all our oracles to guide the search. 
 
 Or whisper hope ; l)ehold him hither l)rough1 
 
 Before our face, and given to our revenge. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Magnific day : 
 
 Fraught with conquest and with glory, 
 
 And tributary victims paid
 
 152 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 To Hivite images and shrines. 
 
 Ye Cemarim, arouse 
 
 Your instruments of music, and exalt 
 
 Baal-berith's peerless power, 
 
 And the name unparagoned, 
 
 Belth-samaim, queen of heaven. 
 
 Let canticle and hymn 
 
 O'er high-place and o'er grove resound. 
 
 O'er valley, })lain and mountain. 
 
 Far-borne by secret magic of the winds 
 
 To Beth-Dagon's distant pile ; 
 
 Where the mighty habitant 
 
 Hearing shall applaud your joy. 
 
 Let the furnace glow 
 
 With seven-fold fury to consume 
 
 The base reviler of our rites : 
 
 Storm and tempest sweep 
 
 His viewless ashes through mid air. 
 
 And with careering blast 
 
 Disperse them to the corners of the world. 
 
 Lest reposing they pollute 
 
 The region where they fall.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 153 
 
 Elias. 
 
 O Thou that sittest on the cherubim. 
 
 Awhile have pity and forbear : 
 
 Lest, if thou walk abroad in anger. 
 
 The pillars of the firmament 
 
 Astonished tremble, and before thy throne 
 
 Heaven and earth in terror fly. 
 
 And never more be found. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Thy prayers are imprecations : but rail on, 
 Unheeded ; nsver sound was on thy tongue 
 But uttered ill-portending speech. Rejoice 
 Ye prophets yet again : for had we seized 
 By violence of arms, or lured by fraud 
 Our foe into the snare, a doubt had risen 
 If safely we might trench upon a life 
 By Him protected, who at will witliholds 
 The dew, the clouds and rain : but self-betrayed, 
 Self-brought, he comes ; abandoned of his God, 
 And open to assault : himself hath sworn, 
 That if no jirodigy tiiis day proclaim 
 His embassy divine, lieaven never more
 
 154 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Will arm in his defence. The cause shall straight 
 Be tried in Israel's sight : already called. 
 They are at hand, and soon shall drag him forth 
 To the blasphemer's death. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 But why delay 
 Our vengeance ; and what cause is to be tried 
 In Israel's sight, and how ? 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Have I not said ? 
 The cause of Baal and Jehovah ; here. 
 In open day, before the assembled tribes. 
 To prove by invocation which the power 
 That will miraculous answer give. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Alas ! 
 What means the king i' 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 What should I mean, but joy 
 And victory ? hast thou not a heart to share
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 155 
 
 The triumpli, thankless that thou art ? what mean 
 Those wildered looks of dread ? 
 
 Priest. 
 
 A fearful sound 
 Is in mine ears, calamity and ruin 
 Glaring with horrid speculation, swim 
 Before my sight ; I shiver, and the pangs 
 Of death are on me. 
 
 Arab. 
 
 What hath changed thee thus ? 
 What madness or what demon thus hath bound thee 
 In trance ol' idle I'ear ? 
 
 I 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Say not, O king ! 
 An idle fear. I knew not he had come. 
 Self brought : it cannot be, he would have rushed 
 Thus wantonly on fate, but that he bears 
 A charmed life, a spell yet undivulged. 
 Which nothing may resist.
 
 156 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Abhorred slave ! 
 Ill fares the monarchy that lends an ear 
 To falsehood such as thine. I loathe the wretch 
 Who, constant to no purpose, yields and stoops 
 Like a wind-shaken reed. What aid hath he. 
 Save from his God ? And that by solemn oath 
 He hath renounced. Are all your multitudes 
 Affrighted at the sight of one ? 
 
 Priest. 
 
 His power 
 We know not what nor whence : but such it is 
 That when his angry imprecations roll. 
 The countless elemental host attend 
 And execute his will. A thousand fears 
 Environ me, and with mysterious dread 
 I shudder, and my brain turns round. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Are all 
 Alike conspired, and are the worshippers
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 157 
 
 Of Him wlio spake in Horeb with the priests 
 Of Baal leagued in union, each to each 
 Echoing- one universal shriek and groan 
 Of presages funereal ? Come the worst 
 That can be thought upon, and let the foe 
 In ease and safety set at nought my power : 
 What then ? it were a rank indignity 
 Unwonted and unfit for kings to bear; 
 But there tlie bodement ends : his rescued life 
 Imports no peril. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Not to thee, O King ! 
 Fenced as thou art with the divinity 
 That prospers Omri's lineage : but to us 
 Bethink thee what must follow, if the throngs 
 Of Israel once misconstrue or mislike 
 Our worship and tradition. In the heart 
 Of the gross populace we must be all 
 Or nothing : either we are held as gods. 
 Or they to us impute, from us exact 
 Of all their trespass and of all their sufiering 
 A bloody expiation.
 
 158 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Be it so : 
 Shall I for that, for them, or thee remit 
 One atom of my will ? If earth or heaven 
 Forego their wonted courses to defend 
 Our adversary, thou and thine have called 
 The peril on your heads : and let it come. 
 Thou hast provoked, and must abide it. Oft 
 Hast thou with vaunt and legendary tale 
 From better thought seduced me to confide 
 In Syrian gods and Baal's boundless sway : 
 These hast thou set before me as the sole 
 Protectors of my realm ; these now be thine. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 We fable not, O king ; our godheads then 
 As now were mighty ; but dissolved in bliss 
 They note not every chance. At such an hour, 
 While Baal sleeps, Jehovah issues forth. 
 Dispeopling empires.
 
 ELIAS IIYDROCHOUS. 159 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Cease your arguings, vain 
 Deceivers, and deceived, self-blinded, self- 
 Undone : for when discourse of reason weaves 
 The web of sin, when pandering to damnation 
 Ye plead the cause of fiends, Jehovah hears, 
 Records, and dooms, and on the impenitent 
 Rains tempest, fire, perdition infinite. 
 Unquenchable : then lust and murder howl. 
 Then blasphemies obscene convert to groans 
 That respite never know. Enough : thy will 
 Hath been obeyed : the congregation comes, 
 O King ; and inspiration visitant 
 Awakes my parable. Ah, sinful nation ! 
 Ah, people laden with iniquity ! 
 Why halt ye thus between the severing ways 
 Of life and death ? For if the Lord l)e God 
 Him worship, and Him only : but if I3aal, 
 Then follow him. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Yet unassur'd, they press 
 With eyeballs on tlio strain to nearer view;
 
 160 ELIAS IIYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Then back, as from a fearful apparition. 
 
 Recoiling, gaze in consternation, shame. 
 
 And tongueless wonder. Such the pause ere winds 
 
 Mix in tumultuary uproar, and rend 
 
 The cedars and the rocks of Lebanon. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Four hundred priests and fifty in the groves 
 Of Baal, and around his altars bow. 
 I, even I alone, am to be found 
 A prophet of the Lord ; none else dare own 
 A name so fatal : single here I stand 
 Against a host. The sheep and oxen know 
 Their owner ; and the turtle and the crane. 
 The stork and swallow keep the appointed times 
 And seasons of their coming : man alone 
 (Though prime of all the creatures) will not hear 
 The bidding of his Maker. Hither bring 
 Two bullocks : one let these idolatrous 
 Slay and divide : and pile it upon wood. 
 And put no fire beneath : myself will slay 
 And lay on wood the victim that remains. 
 But without fire. Then call ye on the name
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 161 
 
 Of all your gods, and I will invocate 
 The Lord ; and he that answereth by fire. 
 Let him be God. 
 
 People. 
 'Tis just ; and spoken well. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Again before thy feet we fall : O change 
 Thy purposes, great king ! nor cast us down 
 Into the deluge dark and turbulent 
 Of peril. Think, ere yet it be too late 
 For hope and mercy. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Think me not a leaf 
 To shake with every wind. The word is past 
 Irrevocable : shall I be forsworn. 
 And start aside from compact in the view 
 Of Israel, and in presence of the sun ? 
 The wide world perish rather ! Answer not 
 
 M
 
 162 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 But by obedience ; or the brazen hoof 
 
 Of power shall trample you into your graves. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 O lost — for ever lost — 
 
 Miserable they who trust 
 
 In princes ; miserable they 
 
 Who for a monarch's smile renounce 
 
 The service of their God. 
 
 Whither can we turn. 
 
 Or whither can we fly ? 
 
 Every way lost — the vengeance and the curse 
 
 We called for, fall on our own heads. 
 
 And ruin drags us to the dire abysme 
 
 Whence no return. 
 
 Ye vales, and mountain groves, no more 
 
 Shall we behold you : farewel to the pomp 
 
 And revelry of sacrificial feast ; 
 
 Farewel to the light. 
 
 And to the pleasureable day, 
 
 While into bottomless despair 
 
 Unpitied we descend. 
 
 O that we were the worm
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 103 
 
 And reptile crawling^ in the dust — 
 
 O that we could melt 
 
 To nothing? — that we never had been born. 
 
 Eli AS. 
 
 The victims are at hand. Ye first essay 
 The rites, for ye are many ; and prepare 
 Your holocaust, and to the fuel bring- 
 No mortal fire ; but supplicate your Gods, 
 If peradventure from the cavern's gultj 
 Or pregnant cloud, or sun, or errant star. 
 Or furnaces of over-arching heaven. 
 Swift conflagration answer to your call. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Now on th' enchanter priesthood (sure though late), 
 Falls retribution : circummur'd and watched 
 By Israel's tribes, they taste the bitterness 
 Of death already, while from side to side 
 They glance, as meditating fliglit. How heave 
 Their bosoms in dismay : with downcast looks. 
 With sunken eyes, with trembling lips and hands, 
 
 HI 2
 
 164 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Reluctantly around their altar g^o 
 The lamentable throng^ : small heart have thev 
 To chant the song of idols, or to clang 
 With timbrel and with dance. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Their earthly life 
 Is forfeit : what hereafter may befal 
 The spirits from their fleshy tenement 
 Dismissed to judgment, that in solemn awe 
 Forbear we to define ; th' account that sums 
 Their trespasses, must never be unrolPd, 
 Till in the last sin-offering earth, and sea. 
 And huge circumference of the skies consume. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 O altar rent in twain ! 
 
 O ashes of the sacrifice 
 
 Poured out abroad, what time the royal hand 
 
 Withered in act to seize 
 
 The prophet who at Bethel's shrine proclaimed 
 
 Woe to idolatry !
 
 ELTAS HYDIIOCIIOUS. 
 
 165 
 
 Voice or utterance need ye none 
 
 To record the wrath supreme 
 
 Incumbent on each hif,''h-place, fane, and grove 
 
 Where heathen incantation scares the sun 
 
 With mingled rites of lust and blood. 
 
 The giant Anakim were driven 
 
 From Hebron and their vaunted towers 
 
 That nestled in the rock, 
 
 The gory Canaanites were slain 
 
 From Merom's waters east to Mizpeh's vale ; 
 
 Their steeds were maimed, their chariots 1)urnt with 
 
 fire. 
 Their populous cities heard 
 No tread of human feet ; the lion walked 
 Along the grass-grown streets. 
 And bitterns screamed beside the stagnant [unA. 
 Such peace have they who bow 
 To idols, and forsake the Living Lord : 
 Could they under mountains hide. 
 Or in the central earth their impious throngs. 
 Even there would he o'crtake them in the deej). 
 And turn the sheltering darkness into day. 
 Or if tlieir impious pride 
 With brief prosperity permissive crowned.
 
 166 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Above the stars of God aspire 
 
 Into the palaces of heaven ; 
 
 Suddenly, ere speech 
 
 Or thought can mark, they fall 
 
 To helpless ruin, hopeless woe ; 
 
 Their pomp, magnificence, and power 
 
 Vanished like the morning dew. 
 
 And not a place or name behind. 
 
 But the progress of the just 
 
 In ever-during blessedness serene. 
 
 Measures with inexhausted strength 
 
 The drear and barren wild. 
 
 Careless of the burning sand. 
 
 Unconscious of the stifling blast ; 
 
 So full their hearts of hopes 
 
 So fixed on immortality their gaze. 
 
 When tempest and when danger swell. 
 
 Deep calling deep, the winds and waves. 
 
 The seas and skies contending. 
 
 Till rocks are rooted from their base. 
 
 And mountains hurled to the profound 
 
 Of ocean, still they smile 
 
 At the vain turmoil of the storm, 
 
 And o'er the cloud-assaulting billows walk
 
 ELIAS liYDllOCHOUS. 
 
 In unappalled j)eace ; 
 
 Till on eagle-wings they mount 
 
 Into interminable joy, 
 
 And in their flesh see God. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Of this no more. Tt is not now a time, 
 I am not now at leisure, nor at ease. 
 To hear or to reprove thee, while the hours 
 Drag thus in long delay. Tlie ritual pomp 
 Is all complete, and punctual in each shape 
 Of ceremony and sanctimonious charm 
 Which antique usage bids. Why linger then 
 The voices that vaticinate, the powers 
 That oft in temple, or imbowering grove. 
 By fall of waters, or in craggy cleft. 
 
 Gave signal and response ? 
 
 Elias. 
 
 It is because 
 They have been summoned to the combating 
 Of open day, and hunted from the dens 
 
 167
 
 ^^^ ELMS HYDROCHOUS. ' 
 
 Where enginry and secret avenues. 
 
 Practised along the vaulting or the walls 
 
 Or pavement of the dusky shrine, gave form 
 
 And semblance to false wonders. Such thy Gods ; 
 
 So motionless, and impotent, and dumb. 
 
 Till human fraud abet them. Sentinelled 
 
 By guards like these, O how defenceless stands 
 
 The city which on Shemei-'s purchased hill 
 
 Tliy father Omri year by year adorned 
 
 In envy, to outparagon the praise 
 
 Of Salem's templed bulwarks ! but unblest 
 
 He builded in unrighteousness his towers. 
 
 Nor called o'er his metropolis the Name 
 
 Of Jacob's God : hence, like the mellow hano-ino-s 
 
 Of palm and vine, her unprotected wealth 
 
 Serves but to lure the plunderer. Think betimes. 
 
 And Him invoke whose omnipresent ami 
 
 Can strengthen thine endangered gates with bolt 
 
 And bar impregnable : bid Israel cast 
 
 Aside their idols, and in penitence 
 
 Adoring, mourn : contrition is the pledge 
 
 Of grace and covenant with auxiliar heaven.
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 169 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Hoarse with our agonizing cries, and (hint 
 With toil, our strength suffices scarce to leap 
 Ujjon thine altars, Baal, or conjure 
 Thy succour : hear us, king of ether ! hear 
 Thy suppliants tottering on the precipice 
 Of death : for see, how the regardless sun 
 Is stooping from his noontide tower, and half, 
 And more than half our respite from the sword 
 Is past and gone. Thou hearest not : O yet 
 Gird on the sword, brandish the spear, and hurl 
 Thy fire-shafts on our offerings ! 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Cry aloud. 
 He is a God, and wherefore answers not ? 
 Is he consulting, or in hot pursuit 
 Of routed foes, or to a distant land 
 On journey bound ? or peradventure, worn 
 Witli warlike feats, he slumbers ; nor awakes. 
 Till started from oblivion by tlie din 
 Of ceaseless clamour.
 
 170 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Franticly they vent 
 Their inarticulate woe : see how they slash 
 Their naked arms, till streams the gushing blood 
 O'er knife and lancet. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 By a thread they hang 
 Between two worlds, from succour and from hope 
 Shut out beyond redemption, scarce alive. 
 Ruin before, behind, on every side. 
 Above them God, beneath them hell. Aloud 
 They cry to Baal, to the graven stock 
 That cannot help, nor hear. There was an hour 
 For mercy, but they spurned away the boon ; 
 And neither Israel's tribes, nor Israel's king. 
 Nor all the hosts and princedoms of the world 
 Can save them now. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 And have I lived to hear 
 Contempt and arrogance like this ? But know.
 
 ELIAS IIYDROCHOUS. 171 
 
 There yet is power in Israel to control 
 Thy bloody will. Ye prophets of the groves. 
 Give to the wind your fears : for by my queen. 
 My dignities and life I swear, that end 
 The strife as end it may, whate'er betide, 
 Whate'er befal, though earth be shaken, skies 
 Be opened, and blue cataracts of fire 
 Rush down, yet my supremacy sliall walk 
 Around you, and forbid th' approach of harm. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 'Tis deeply sworn : and since the kingly oatli 
 Is past that so it shall be, ye are safe. 
 If earth-born prowess with Omnipotence 
 Can vie, or dust and ashes cope with heaven. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 How feeble in such strife habergeon, spear. 
 Purple and domination, hosts and realms. 
 Time witnesses, and we have heard of yore 
 From our forefathers. .Knicho and Ai, 
 Midian and Amalek, and Bashan's king. 
 And Kirjath-Arba, and from Ifalak mount
 
 172 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 To Baal-Gad in Lebanon's rich vale. 
 
 And Debii-'s brood, and Hazoi*'s fire-doomed towers. 
 
 Defied the armies of the Living Lord, 
 
 But from the presence of Jehovah fled 
 
 As hornets from the blast. 
 
 ^ Priest. 
 
 Divinities 
 Of Zidon and of Tyre, awake and see. 
 Hear and avenge ! By all our service past. 
 Our genuflections, sacrifices, vows. 
 Our self-gashed nakedness, and streaming gore. 
 Hear from your bosky summits, greenwood haunts. 
 Rocky clefts and pebbled rills ! 
 Remphan and Asarach, give ear 
 In this our utmost need ! 
 Chemos and Anamelech, 
 Behold us, and defend ! 
 Is there still no voice, no sign. 
 No speech nor answer, though the day 
 Lower and lower yet 
 From its meridian height descend ? 
 Career not thus, impatient sun,
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 173 
 
 Nor with thy swift-declining beams 
 
 Mock at our misery. 
 
 Check his fatal speed, 
 
 Queen of the firmament ! 
 
 And drive him backward to his orient halls, 
 
 Or chain him motionless in mid-way heaven. 
 
 Unheeding he rides on. 
 
 Not a vision, not a sound. 
 
 Not a chance is left. 
 
 Not a hope remains ; 
 
 « 
 
 While the westward orb 
 
 Inexorable goes down. 
 
 O for a moment to recal 
 
 That parting radiance : still it sinks. 
 
 It disappears — the rest is death. 
 
 And the dreadful judgment-day, 
 
 Th' eternal and insufferable doom, 
 
 Whose very thought is hell. 
 
 A thousand long-forgotten deeds of sin. 
 
 Too late remembered, now before our sight, 
 
 In legioned horror glare. 
 
 And all around us flock the throngs 
 
 Innumerable, of murdered innocents 
 
 To Moloch sacrificed by fire
 
 174 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 In that detested vale. 
 
 Fall on us, hills and mountains, 
 
 Hide us from Jehovah's eye. 
 
 The bottomless profound 
 
 To devour us opens vi'ide, 
 
 And blazes, thunders, groans. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Weep ; for ye have full cause : no power is mine 
 
 (Whate'er my inward will) to let you go; 
 
 So rank is your oilence, so long inured 
 
 To falsehood, so obdurate to blaspheme. 
 
 Ye cannot call it ignorance ; for ye knew 
 
 The law ere ye forsook it, the decree 
 
 Inflexible, that nothing may redeem 
 
 Idolaters from death : it is no time 
 
 To dally, when rebellion against God 
 
 Infects our confines ; mercy is in league 
 
 With justice then to stay the plague, and close 
 
 The mouths that open only to persuade 
 
 Impiety and lust. I was not sent 
 
 To change the Law's pre-ordinance, or mix 
 
 Mine own short-sighted pity with behest
 
 ELTAS HYDROCIIOUS. 175 
 
 Of sovereign power : and therefore, though with feet 
 
 Reluctant, though in grief I come, constrained 
 
 By embassy and office to convict 
 
 And yield you up idolaters, to abide 
 
 Th' appointed doom. 'Tis now the solemn hour 
 
 Of evening sacrifice, the hour divine 
 
 Wherein Jehovah day by day made pause 
 
 In his creation, and with blessing sealed - 
 
 The perfect work : O hour so lovely once 
 
 In holier years, when Isaac's heritage 
 
 Walked yet with God, and earth resembled heaven. 
 
 How hast thou long been lonely and forgotten. 
 
 Thy vows how silent, and thy services 
 
 How slighted and profaned ! Each idol shrine 
 
 A thousand hands adorn : but how defaced. 
 
 How moss-clad, violated, broken down, 
 
 The altar of the Lord ! To j^ou I turn, 
 
 Assembled multitudes. Twelve stones collect. 
 
 According to the number of the tribes 
 
 Of Jacob, whom the Lord in Peniel named 
 
 Israel, redoubted prince ; and build anew 
 
 God's altar, and around it make a trench 
 
 Ample and deo]).
 
 176 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 People. 
 At thy command *tis done. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 The wood I range in order, and divide 
 The victim-steer, and on the wood dispose 
 His reeking limbs. Stand not aloof; advance, 
 Mark well, look narrowly, and record bear 
 No fire or spark is nigh. Next, to confirm 
 Your own eye-witness surer still, with speed 
 , From Kishon water bring, and on the wood 
 And on the bullock pour ; the second time. 
 And yet the third time with insatiate drench 
 Flood the piled fuel. 
 
 People. 
 
 Thrice have we obeyed ; 
 And, lo ! the prodigal effusion streams 
 Redundant from the altar, and dilates 
 In spacious current.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 177 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Yet remains to fill 
 
 The circling trench. 
 
 People. 
 
 We fill, and it o'erflows, 
 And far and wide around the thirsty sand 
 Is gladdened with the moisture. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 What imports 
 The tedious ceremonial ? will it ne'er 
 Have end ? what means this studied circumstance. 
 This lingering preparation, that provokes 
 Disdain and laughter ? Will the waters blaze 
 At thy command, proud Tishbite ? But I thank 
 Thy vaunting folly that hath made impossible 
 The succour of confederate fraud, and stamped 
 My victory doubly sure. Haste, to the proof, 
 Impostor ; meet thy doom, embrace thy death. 
 
 N
 
 178 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 EUAS. 
 
 Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob, 
 Lei it be known this day that thou art God 
 In Israel, and that I have done all this 
 According to thy will. Hear me, O Lord ! 
 Hear me, that all the people may adore 
 In penitence thy Name. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 O mercy — mercy — 
 
 People. 
 
 The Lord he is the God ! the Lord he is the God ! 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Glory to God on high ! 
 Speech and sight confounding. 
 Fire from the Lord hath fallen. 
 And consumed the sacrifice :
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. '179 
 
 I 
 Prostrate sink the congregation 
 
 Nen'eless and unmanned. 
 
 Merciful heaven, recal 
 
 My senses, that they wander not. 
 
 The wood, the stones, the dust, 
 
 Are vanished into clouds of smoke 
 
 That breathe a fragrancy divine ; 
 
 While the swift combustion 
 
 Hath drunk the waters of the trench, and left 
 
 The broad capacious bottom singed and bare. 
 
 People. 
 The Lord he is the God ! the Lord he is the God ! 
 
 Elias, 
 
 Who then are these P What wonder if the land 
 For your offence be barren, while the feet 
 Unhallowed and unblest of idol pi-iests 
 Pollute the sacred region ? Plenty ne'er 
 Shall answer to your tillage, benison 
 Shall never crown your dwelling, till their blood 
 Make expiation. Seize them, bear them hence 
 To death : let none escape. 
 
 n2
 
 180 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 O horror — horror — 
 Chain, torture, starve ; more miserable make us 
 Than want and leprosy ; trample us down 
 Like a vile bondsman or a bondsman's slave. 
 So we but live : or grant us a delay, 
 A little respite, for an hour, a moment ; 
 We ask no more : ye will not slay us yet. 
 While prostrate thus and fainting lies the king. 
 Whose oath was pledged for our defence. O think 
 Of your allegiance, and deny him not. 
 Your own anointed sovereign, time to breathe. 
 And speak his will. 
 
 People. 
 
 We know not if he live 
 Or die ; and we ourselves may perish next. 
 If we delay : alive or dead, his power 
 Avails you not.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 181 
 
 It is no question now 
 Of earthly potentate ; a mightier hand 
 Is working, and the King of kings hath fixed 
 Unchangeably your doom : I may not spare. 
 And therefore will not hear you. Men of Israel, 
 Yours is the ministry : but lest they fall 
 On consecrated ground, to Kishon's stream 
 Drag the devoted throng, and slay them there. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Bewildered r.nd astounded I forget 
 My duty to the king, whose lengthened swoon 
 May stretch to dissolution. Chafe his brows. 
 And gently bend him forward : he respires : 
 I feel the pressure of his hand. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 O misery ! 
 Call me not back ; methought I had escaped
 
 182 - ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 To sleep and darkness : plunge me not again 
 Into the fiery deep. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Press not around 
 So closely ; give him air : he scarcely breathes. 
 And knows not what he utters. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Still no hope 
 Of pardon? yet awhile forbear me — quench 
 Th' intolerable flame. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 What means my lord— 
 What means the king of Israel ? 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Let me sleep. 
 Let me sleep on for ever : wake me not 
 To pangs infernal.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 183 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Be not thus dismayed : 
 There is no cause : revive thee, and arise : 
 Look round, my sovereign. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Am I not ingulfed 
 In sulphurous seas of everlasting flame ? 
 The light that blinds me, is it not the blaze 
 Of conflagration ? and the winds I feel. 
 Are they not rolling fire ? Where is the fierce 
 Refulgent hierarch, that struck me down 
 To nethmost hell ? even yet demoniac screams 
 I hear, and see a thousand hideous things 
 That language has no name for. Near me stand, 
 Abdias, and nearer yet : thy presence cheers. 
 And will protect me. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Let the king recal 
 His scattered thoughts : no enemy is nigh : 
 And all may yet be well.
 
 184 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 How deep a gloom 
 Saddens the twilight ; what a silence awes 
 The listening world ! why am I thus alone ? 
 And ah ! — what sudden change of horror comes ? 
 Again I hear the fiendly yell, and groans. 
 Deep groans of death. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 The prophets of the groves, 
 And Baal's priests, are by the peo^^le hence 
 To slaughter borne ; and Kishon's channel flows 
 Impurpled with their blood. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Evil betide 
 The tongue that tells me so. And who hath dared 
 Such treason ? — Fool to ask — there is but one 
 Would so presume, so desperately defy 
 The majesty of kings. And art thou here, 
 O enemy of Israel ! Get thee gone 
 Into thy solitudes, thy rocks and dens.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 18/ 
 
 And with thy woodland savages consort, 
 Fiercer thyself than they : hence, and beware : 
 Exult not — I shall find a time — 
 
 Elias. 
 
 At least 
 'Tis now no time to threaten or blaspheme. 
 When here, as erst on Sinai, walks the Ijord 
 In more immediate presence ; whose approach. 
 Rocking earth's vast rotundity, unbars 
 With unimaginable touch the dark 
 Abode of clouds and dew. I hear the sound 
 Of an abundant rain : arise, retire. 
 And speedily with needful sustenance • 
 Repair thy vigour, wasted with the fast 
 Of this eventful day. Myself the while 
 To Carmel's top in meditation go. 
 And wait the benediction. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 As he went. 
 His hair, his beard, and all his visage streamed 
 With unction ol' celestial light ; his feet
 
 186 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Disdained the ground ; and gliding through the air 
 He seemed an angel ministrant, from earth 
 In glory re-ascending to the sky. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 He takes upon him state, and gives command 
 As though he were a king ; and (shame to speak) 
 I bear it ; for he has me in the toils. 
 And holds me captive : his the present hour : 
 The future may be mine. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 How hard for pride 
 To think submission ! Frowning he departs. 
 And in a hot distemperature : so looks 
 The famished lion, when by force repelled 
 From his new-grappled prey : heaven subjugate 
 The mutiny of his will, and soften down 
 That stubborn heart. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Unhappy is the land 
 Whose prophets prophesy deceit, whose priests
 
 ELI AS HYDROCHOUS. 187 
 
 False visions see, and dream delusive dreams. 
 Whose counsellors in idol fanes bow down. 
 Whose monarch swerves from virtue ; peril then. 
 And woe and pestilence are nigh : abroad 
 The venom flies, and far and wide the realm 
 Is tainted by example. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Wonderful 
 Is the mercy of Jehovah, 
 Waiting long, and sending oft, 
 Early and late, the monitors 
 Of penitence, the blest ambassadors 
 Of peace and pardon : full of wonder 
 Are all the works of God ! 
 Children's children shall proclaim 
 The history of this hour : 
 Sacred no less to memory than the voice 
 Of visitation and of woe. 
 When from Gilgal came 
 The chiding angel of the Lord 
 To Bochim ; and the people wept , 
 
 At his rebuke, and sacrificed
 
 188 ELIAS HYDTIOCHOUS. 
 
 Before the Lord with praise 
 
 And remorseful supplication. 
 
 In wrath remembering mercy, 
 
 The God of Israel hath withdrawn 
 
 The blast of his displeasure : yon expanse 
 
 Of lucid atmosphere shall gloom 
 
 With gathering vapours, while the clouds 
 
 Drop fatness down. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 What power hath zeal ! with what a lion heart , 
 
 Jehovah's servants work his will ! the rage 
 
 Of kings, the scorner's mockery, and th' uproar 
 
 Of anarchy and slaughter cannot shake 
 
 Their stedfast soul : the moon may hide her beams. 
 
 The mid-day sun grow pale, the morning stars 
 
 Like lightning foil from heaven ; but undismayed 
 
 Appeal they to the Mercy-seat on high. 
 
 And faithful as the sun their orb perform. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Their progress is from strength to strength, 
 From perfection to perfection.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCIIOUS. 189 
 
 Mounting indefectible. 
 
 Such the perennial influences 
 
 That sanctify th' elect of God 
 
 With imbreathed incorruption ; 
 
 Such the consolatories 
 
 Which in the glass of contemplation seen, 
 
 Imparadise the soul. 
 
 From her poor tenement of clay 
 
 Aspiring on imperishable plume 
 
 To pass the barriers that disjoin 
 
 The feeble child of pain and sorrow. 
 
 With dun mortality eye-filmed o'er, 
 
 From the beatific vision 
 
 Of the inexpressive Sire. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Yet bartering (mindless of religion's bliss) 
 
 Our birth-right for the transitory gust 
 
 Of appetite, the Cunaanitish gods 
 
 Have we enshrined and worshipped. Scarce three 
 
 years 
 In blight and drought and famine groaned away, 
 And scarce the heaven-enkindled sacrifice
 
 190 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Could discipline our wandering to draw back 
 From the high-ways of hell. But clemency. 
 Outrunning our contrition, to the fields 
 Gives harvest now : health in our palaces. 
 And peace and plenteousness within our walls. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 How terrible, O Lord ! 
 
 The tabernacles of thy power, when veiled 
 
 In dark severity thy countenance 
 
 Is hidden from created eye. 
 
 On the right-hand unapproached. 
 
 On the left invisible. 
 
 O Lord ! how excellent 
 
 The tabernacles of thy power, 
 
 When mercy lightens up the drear obscure. 
 
 Diffusing over earth and heaven 
 
 The sunshine of immeasurable peace. 
 
 How oft, when war and servitude 
 
 Had visited our sin, and left 
 
 Our joyous cities pale. 
 
 And solitary as the pelican 
 
 Or desert owl.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 191 
 
 Have the legions of Jehovah 
 
 With emblazonry of light 
 
 Environed us, and given 
 
 To our scant battle and unpractised arms 
 
 Strength irresistible to blast 
 
 The pride of heathen kings. 
 
 For this the prophetess forsook 
 
 Her judgment-seat beneath the spreading palm 
 
 In Ephraim mount, and with Abinoam's son 
 
 Led their ten thousand to subdue 
 
 The numberless array and iron host 
 
 Of Jabin's tyrant realm : 
 
 For this the valiant sword 
 
 Of him from Abiezer smote. 
 
 When his three hundred scared the camp 
 
 Of Midian, and with rout and slaughter chased 
 
 Their myriads over Jordan, and o'erthrew 
 
 The remnant fifteen thousand that encamped 
 
 In Karkor with their death-doomed kings, 
 
 Zebah and Zalmunna : 
 
 For this the matchless Nazarite 
 
 Pulled down the vault of Gaza's fane 
 
 Upon the heads of populace and peer. 
 
 Amid their idol revelry.
 
 192 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 With all their sculptured Gods, 
 
 That with himself a nation lay intombed. 
 
 O ! if obdurate still 
 
 In heathen groves we burn 
 
 Incense, and eat the offerings of the dead. 
 
 Was never guilt like ours. 
 
 Nor like ours shall be perdition. 
 
 God of our fathers ! shield us from the curse 
 
 Of unrepented sin : 
 
 Else — but wherefore strays 
 
 Adown my cheek th' involuntary sorrow ? 
 
 And whei'efore weighs dejection 
 
 So heavy on my heart ? 
 
 Museful Melancholy 
 
 Hath led me to a vale of shadows 
 
 And fastnesses of death ; 
 
 Where enlabyrinthed I wander 
 
 In wild presageful woe. 
 
 In other spheres I roam. 
 
 And sounds of other ages hear — 
 
 Heavy tidings, doleful vision, 
 
 A slaughtered people, ravaged fields, 
 
 And cities wrapt in penal fire. 
 
 The dreadful implement of wrath.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCIIOl'S. 19-5 
 
 The conqueror from Assyria comes : 
 And prince and people in captivity 
 And exiled bondage pine. 
 
 Audi AS. 
 
 The king returns : impetuous and uneven 
 His gait ; and in the working of his brow 
 I read unquiet thought. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 AVhy did I hope 
 For solace ? rest and ease are gone for ever. 
 What am I but a shadow of the king, 
 Tf thus defied I cannot stretch an arm 
 Against one rebel life ? my very breath 
 I draw in pain, till f hn\e blood lor Itlood. 
 Yet tell me, Abdias (for my troubled soul 
 But ill remembers), did he not })redict 
 The near approacli of laiu :' 
 
 <)
 
 194 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Such was his word : 
 And well we know, from those heaven-tutored lips 
 No promise ever vain or frustrate fell. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 It cannot be. What power hath he to bind 
 Or loose the clouds ? My royalty and pride 
 Cry out amain, revenge ! and for revenge 
 I will envisage the most hideous shape 
 That danger can put on. But who is this. 
 What breathless messenger, whose violent speed 
 Outstrips the wind ? 
 
 Messenger. 
 
 By me Elias greets 
 The sovereignty of Israel, and forewarns 
 Thy chariot and thine horsemen to prepare. 
 And with dispatchful haste to Jezreel ride. 
 Ere yet the rain-swollen torrents intercept 
 Thy progress.
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 19/ 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Who and wliat, and whence art thou, 
 And where thy sender ;' where the pluvial haze. 
 The vaporous breezes, the meteorous signs 
 
 And harbingers of rain ? 
 
 Messenger. 
 
 T am the son 
 Of that poor widow underneath whose roof 
 In Zarephatli the man of God sojourned, 
 And day by day miraculously fed 
 Our penury : and when a sore disease 
 Had wasted me to death, his pity heard 
 My mother's frantic cries, and by his prayer 
 Recalled me from the grave : that life redeemed. 
 To him and to his service I devote. 
 In fond though weak requital. When he left 
 Thy presence, mighty prince, on me he called 
 To follow him ; and instant as the word, 
 I was caught up ; smooth sailing on the deeps 
 Of the thin atmosphere, aloft we went
 
 19G ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 To Carmel's top ; and at a cavern's mouth 
 Beneath the rugged brow the prophet paused. 
 And on a rock sat down, and o'er his face 
 Folded his mantle, and reclined his head 
 In tongueless ecstasy of meditation. 
 At length he bade me scale the craggy peak 
 That overhangs the cave, and look abroad 
 Upon the western waves ; abroad I looked. 
 But not a speck nor breath was in the skies. 
 The boundless ocean slept, th' horizon glowed 
 With tranquil red, and lethargy had lulled 
 Earth and the circumambient glimmering air. 
 Seven times again at his command I climbed. 
 And seaward looked : the seventh time I beheld 
 A small and misty cloud, like human hand. 
 Arising from the deep. The prophet then. 
 Bade me in chariot of the wind ride hither 
 And warn the king to Jezreel, ere the rain 
 Obstruct his way. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Adorable Supreme ! 
 What thanks, what praise, what blessings can repay
 
 ELIAS IIYDROCIIOUS. 197 
 
 Thy boundless grace ! The Godhead comes : the 
 
 skies 
 Are bhick with clouds and wind. 
 
 Ahau. 
 
 How darksome lours 
 The tempest ; mingling' heaven and earth : he comes. 
 With whirlwind armed and thunder : follow me, 
 Abdias, and let us hence ; with heavy heart 
 And heavy tidings to my queen I go. 
 Ere yet the volleyed lightning strike me dead. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 What means yon arrowy flame 
 
 Air-kindled on the mountain's murky brow ? 
 
 Is it a star from heaven 
 
 Gliding down the craggy steep 
 
 In lengthening stream of fire .'' 
 
 It comes upon me, and assumes 
 
 The stature, and the motion 
 
 And lineaments of Adam's sons : 
 
 It is himself, the wonderous seer.
 
 198 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Th' intelligencer divine ! 
 
 What hand upbears thee, wings thy speed, 
 
 And vestures thee in blaze 
 
 Of majesty and lustre that confound 
 
 My mortal vision P 
 
 Come not in avenging glory. 
 
 Like the minister of wrg^th, 
 
 Who from Dan to Beersheba 
 
 His seventy thousand slew. 
 
 Till beside Araunah's floor 
 
 The voice of mercy stayed 
 
 His hand, already stretched abroad 
 
 To destroy Jerusalem. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 The Spirit of the Lord 
 
 Is on me, and I honour in the sight 
 
 Of Israel's heritage their hard-ruled king. 
 
 Space still is lent him, still he breathes. 
 
 Not yet irrevocably cast 
 
 To condemnation. 
 
 To Jezreel gates I run, 
 
 A livuig torch before the royal car.
 
 ELIAS IJYDROCHOUS. \i)i) 
 
 To guide his wheels unerring and secure, 
 Through perilous pass and rugged plain. 
 Up dizzy mount, and into dell profound, 
 Amid the dense tempestuous gloom 
 or whirlwind and of midnight. 
 
 Chorus. 
 Dazzling and momentary as the flash 
 Of lightning east and west illumining 
 The storm-fraught clouds, or interlunar dark. 
 The prophet disappeared : the neighing steeds. 
 The shouting charioteers, and acclamation 
 Of the wild populace already speak 
 The sovereign's course begun. From Kishon's hanks 
 The congregation flocking, upward gaze, 
 And passionately catch, and in the palm 
 Of every hand with glad astonishment 
 Shew each to each the first prelusive drops 
 Of long-wished rain. Slumbrous serenity 
 Hushes the welkin, and in moisture pure. 
 Soft-trickling as the dew on Gideon's fleece, 
 And seasonable and mild, all heaven distils — 
 Sweeter than honey, richer than the gold
 
 200 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Of Ophir. Faster now, and i'aster yet 
 
 The pattering- treasures fall : the whistling winds 
 
 Renew their battles, and amain 
 
 Roars the dread-bolted thunder. 
 
 What sable oceans roll. 
 
 Shrouding- Carmel's head ! 
 
 They burst : the firmamental floods 
 
 In delug-es descending, from his sides 
 
 Rebounding smoke. Lord of eternity ! 
 
 Glory and honour, might, dominion, praise, 
 
 To Thee on earth be ever sung. 
 
 As in the immortal paradise 
 
 Where Thou reignest evermore. 
 
 Clouds and darkness rolled around thee, 
 
 Mercy and truth the habitation of thy throne, 
 
 The full-voiced Cherubim resound. 
 
 Day and night and without end. 
 
 Hallelujah ' hallelujah ! 
 
 THI' KND,
 
 NOTES. 
 
 (a) . — Page 3. 
 
 The round towers of Ireland have been described as watch-towers 
 (or beacons) as belfries, as places of penance, and as fire- temples ; 
 but as Mr. Hickman observes, in his admirable essay on Gothic 
 Architecture, " their particular service is very difficult to assign." 
 
 (/>).-Page 3. 
 
 Here occurs a slight (and the only) deviation from literal fact. 
 The result of the race was, as here stated : but we did not person- 
 ally witness it ; being engaged in the Gap of Dunlow. 
 
 (c).— Page 10. 
 "Mountain-dew" — alias Whiskey. 
 
 (rf).— Page 15. 
 ''Upland of the Boar" — " Turk-Mountain" — from Tore, a Boar. 
 
 (/).-Page 43. 
 
 The solemn eflfect produced by the echo of one deep bugle-note, 
 is finely appropriate to the savage grandeur of Glena-Copul, " The 
 Horse's Glen."
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 Page 71, stanza 20, line 4, " So Soothe" should be " To soothe.
 
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