"HE GOES, AND NIGHT COMES AS IT NEVER CAME,
Strike this day as if the anvil
Lay beneath your blows the while,
Be they covenanting traitors,
Or the brood of false Argyle!
Strike! and drive the trembling rebels
Backwards o'er the stormy Forth;
Let them tell their pale Convention
How they fared within the North;
Let them tell that Highland honour
Is not to be bought nor sold-
That we scorn their Prince's anger,
As we loathe his foreign gold.
Strike! and when the fight is over,
If ye look in vain for me,
Where the dead are lying thickest
Search for him who was Dundee !"
"THE PLUME AND SCARF, BY BEAUTY WOVEN, DAGGLED IN BLOOD, THE HELMET CLOVEN;
THE PENNONS PROUD OF YESTERDAY, BORNE BY THE GALLANT AND THE GAY."-WIFFEN.
Loudly then the hills re-echoed
With our answer to his call;
But a deeper echo sounded
In the bosoms of us all.
For the lands of wild Breadalbane
Not a man who heard him speak
Would that day have left the battle :
Burning eye and flashing cheek
Told the clansmen's fierce emotion,
And they harder drew their breath;
For their souls were strong within them,
Stronger than the grasp of death.
Soon we heard a challenge-trumpet
Sounding in the Pass below,
And the distant tramp of horses,
And the voices of the foe.
WITH SHRIEKS OF HORROR AND A VAULT OF FLAME!"-ROGERS.
"THE ARMS ARE FAIR, WHEN THE INTENT OF BEARING THEM IS JUST."-SHAKSPEARE.
SOUNDS NOT THE CLANG OF CONFLICT ON THE HEATH?
THE BURIAL-MARCH OF DUNDEE.
Down we crouched amid the bracken,
Till the Lowland ranks drew near,
Panting like the hounds in summer
When they scent the stately deer.
["There we found him, gashed and gory.")
From the dark defile emerging,
Next we saw the squadrons come--
Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers
Marching to the tuck of drum.
Through the scattered wood of birches,
O'er the broken ground and heath,
Wound the long battalion slowly,
Till they gained the plain beneath.
SAW YE NOT WHOM THE REEKING SABRE SMOTE?"-BYRON,
"AND THRONGING HELMS APPEARED, AND SERRIED SHIELDS IN THICK ARRAY."-MILTON.
"ALL FURNISHED, ALL IN ARMS, ALL PLUMED LIKE ESTRIDGES THAT WING THE WIND."-SHAKSPEARE.
Foot to foot and hand to hand.
Horse and man went down like drift-wood
When the floods are black at Yule;*
And their carcasses are whirling
In the Garry's deepest pool. +
Horse and man went down before us-
Living foe there tarried none
On the field of Killiecrankie
When that stubborn fight was done!
And the evening star was shining
On Schehallion's distant head
When we wiped our bloody broadswords,
And returned to count the dead.
There we found him, gashed and gory,
Stretched upon the cumbered plain,
As he told us where to seek him—
In the thickest of the slain.
†The river Garry rises in the central Grampians.
The Pass of Killiecrankie is about half a mile long, and descends to the Garry water in a deep precipitous chasm. The acclivities above are thickly wooded. The battle was fought on the rough vale ground immediately above it, and a rude stone, near Urrard House, marks the spot where it was "lost and won."
COLDLY EMBRACING THE DISCOLOURED EARTH.
"ALL WAS ENDED NOW, THE HOPE, AND THE FEAR, AND THE SORROW."-HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
"DEAR, BEAUTEOUS DEATH, THE JEWEL OF THE JUST, SHINING NOWHERE BUT IN THE DARK,
THE MARTIAL COURAGE OF A DAY IS VAIN
And a smile was on his visage;
For within his dying ear
Pealed the joyful notes of triumph,
And the clansmen's clamorous cheer.
So, amidst the battle's thunder,
Shot and steel, and scorching flame,
In the glory of his manhood
Passed the spirit of the Græme!
[From "The Burial-March of Dundee," stanzas ii. to iv.]
WHAT MYSTERIES DO LIE BEYOND THY DUST, COULD MAN OUTLOOK THAT MARK!"-VAUGHAN,
Philip James Bailey.
[PHILIP JAMES BAILEY was born at Nottingham on the 22nd of April,
1816. After receiving the rudiments of his education at various private
schools, he was sent to the University of Glasgow. In 1833 he began a
course of legal study; in 1835 was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn;
and in 1840 was called to the bar. He preferred, however, Clio to Themis,
and poetry to law. In 1839 he gave to the world his first and immeasur-
ably his best poem, "Festus," an extraordinary production in many
respects, and specially so in having been written by a young man of
twenty-two. Despite of the daring, remoteness, and slight human interest
of the poem, it has obtained an extensive popularity, which its wealth of
imagery and splendour of diction undoubtedly deserve. In 1850 appeared
"The Angel World," afterwards incorporated with "Festus;" in 1855,
"The Mystic;" and in 1858, a satire entitled “The Age," which is
ally considered unworthy of Mr. Bailey's powers.
"Festus," in many respects, will remind the reader of Goethe's "
but its purpose is higher, and its spirit more tenderly devout.
from earth to heaven, from heaven to the nether world, and takes in review
all the leading events of human history. No one man could wholly suc-
ceed in so great a task. It is Mr. Bailey's highest praise that he has not
entirely failed. There is extravagance in the design, and much weakness
in the execution; but every page overflows with exuberant poetry.
"I know no poem in any language," says Dr. Westland Marston, "that
can be compared with it in copiousness and variety of imagery. The uni
verse is as rife with symbols to this poet as it is with facts to the common
observer. His illustrations, sometimes bold and towering as the mountains,
are, at others, soft, subtle, and delicate as the mists that veil their summits.
But better than this, with a truth, force, and simplicity seldom paralleled,
we have here disclosed the very inmost life of a sincere and energetic mind."]
AN EMPTY NOISE OF DEATH THE BATTLE'S ROAR."-WORDSWORTH.
"THE POET IN A GOLDEN CLIME WAS BORN, WITH GOLDEN STARS ABOVE, TENNYSON'
POETRY, THE LANGUAGE OF THE GODS."-S. ROGERS.
JOETS are all who love-who feel-great truths
And tell them and the truth of truths is love.
There was a time-oh, I remember well!-
When, like a sea-shell with its sea-born strain,
My soul aye rang with the music of the lyre;
And my heart shed its love as leaves their dew—
A honey dew, and throve on what it shed.
All things I loved; but song I loved in chief.
Imagination is the air of mind;
Judgment its earth, and memory its main;
Passion its fire. I was at home in heaven:
Swift-like, I lived above: once touching earth,
The meanest thing might master me: long wings
But baffled. Still and still I harped on song.
Oh! to create within the mind is bliss ;
And, shaping forth the lofty thought, or lovely,
We seek not, need not, heaven: and when the thought---
Cloudy and shapeless-first forms on the mind,
Slow darkening into some gigantic make,
How the heart shakes with pride and fear, as heaven
Quakes under its own thunder; or as might,
Of old, the mortal mother of a god,
When first she saw him lessening up the skies.
And I began the toil divine of verse,
Which, like a burning bush, doth guest a god.
But this was only wing-flapping- —not flight;
The pawing of a courser ere he win;
Till by degrees, from wrestling with my soul,
I gathered strength to keep the fleet thoughts fast,
And made them bless me. Yes, there was a time
When tomes of ancient song held eye and heart—
"HE SAW THRO' LIFE AND DEATH, THRO' GOOD AND ILL."-TENNYSON.
DOWERED WITH THE HATE OF HATE, THE SCORN OF SCORN, THE LOVE OF LOVE."-TENNYSON.
|