Bright rings of gold her braided ringlets bind;
The rattling quiver, laden, hangs behind.
She seized, with snowy hand, the polished bow,
And moved before, majestically slow.
The chiefs behind advance their sable forms,
And with dark contrast heighten all her charms.
Thus, on expanded plains of heavenly blue,
Thick-gathered clouds the queen of night pursue;
And as they crowd behind their sable lines,
The virgin light with double lustre shines.
The maid her glowing charms thus onward bears;
His manly height aside young Duffus rears.
Her beauty he, his manhood she admires;
Both moved along, and fed their silent fires.
The hunters to the lofty mountains came:
Their eager breasts anticipate the game:
The forest they divide, and sound the horn;
The generous hounds within their bondage burn,
Struggle for freedom, long to stretch away,
And in the breeze already find the prey.
At the approaching noise the starting deer
Croud on the heath, and stretch away in fear,
Wave, as they spring, their branchy heads on high,
Skim o'er the wild, and leave the aching eye.
The eager hounds, unchained, devour the heath;
They shoot along, and pant a living death:
Gaining upon their journey, as they dart,
Each from the herd selects a flying hart.
Some urged the bounding stag a different way,
And hung with open mouth upon the prey:
Now they traverse the heath, and now assail
The rising hill, now skim along the vale:
Now they appear, now leave the aching eyes;
The master follows with exulting cries,
Fits, as he flies, the arrow to the string;
The rest within the rattling quiver ring:
He, as they shoot the lofty mountains o'er,
Pursues in thought, and sends his soul before.
Thus they with supple joints the chase pursue,
Rise on the hills, and vanish on the brow.
On the blue heavens arose a night of clouds;
The radiant lord of day his glory shrouds:
The rushing whirlwind speaks with growling breath,
Roars through the hill, and scours along the heath;
Deep rolling thunder, rumbling from afar,
Proclaims with murmuring voice th' aerial war:
Fleet lightnings flash in awful streams of light,
Dart through the gloom, and vanish from the sight:
The blustering winds through heaven's black concave sound, Rain batters earth, and smokes along the ground.
Down the steep hill the rushing torrents run,
And cleave with headlong rage their journey on;
The lofty mountains echo to the fall;
A muddy deluge stagnates on the vale.
Culena moved along the level ground;
A hart descends before the opening hound:
From the recoiling cord she twanged the dart,
And pierced the living vigour of the hart:
He starts, he springs; but falling as he flies,
Pours out his tim'rous soul with weeping eyes.
As o'er the dying prey the huntress sighed,
Before the wind heaven pours a sable tide,
And lowering threats a storm: a rocky cave,
His sleeky hounds, a faithful tribe, before,
Are bathed with blood, and varied o'er with gore.
Drenched with the rain, the noble youth descends,
And in the cave the growling storm defends. 2 N
Amazed, astonished, fixed in dumb surprise,
The lovers stood, but spoke with silent eyes:
At length the distant colloquy they rear,
Run o'er the chace, the mountain, and the deer.
Far from the soul th' evasive tongue departs,
Their eyes are only faithful to their hearts,
The winding volumes of discourse return
To hostile fields by gallant Duffus shorn.
Th' imperial maid must hear it o'er again,
How fell Dovalus was by Duffus slain,
How by the son the father's murderer fell.
The kindling virgin flames along the tale..
She turns, she quakes, and from her bosom sighs,
And all her soul comes melting in her eyes.
Flames, not unequal, all the youth possess,
He, for the first, hears willingly his praise.
Praise, harshly heard from warriors, kings, and lords,
Came down in balm on fair Culena's words.
The royal pair thus fed the mutual fire,
Now speak, now pause, when both alike admire.
He longs to vent the passion of his soul,
And she the tempests in her bosom roll.
Now he begun, but shame his voice opprest;
Loth to offend, his eyes must tell the rest.
At length, upon the headlong passion borne,
He spoke his love, and had a kind return;
She sighed, she owned, and bent her modest eyes,
While blushing roses on her cheeks arise,
Thus on the vale the poppy's blushing head,
Brim-full of summer-showers, to earth is weighed;
Fanned with the rising breeze, it slow inclines,
While o'er the mead the rosy lustre shines.
Indulph into his cave the hermit led,
Found erring through the mountain's stormy head.
Culena, starting as the king appears,
Looks every way, and trembles as she fears;
On her mild face the modest blushes rise,
And fair disorder darted from her eyes.
The parent king observed the virgin whole,
And read the harmless secret in her soul,
A while the maze of calm discourse they wind;
At length the king unveils his royal mind.
"Warded from Albion's head, the storm is o'er;
Her prince is found, her foes are now no more:
Through time 'tis ours her happiness to trace,
'Tis ours to bind the future bands of peace.
Posterity for Albion's crown may fight,
And couch ambition in the name of right,
With specious titles urge the civil war,
And to a crown their guilty journey tear:
I end these fears: the streams shall run in one,
Nor struggling kindred strive to mount the throne.
I shield my daughter with young Duffus' arms,
And bless the warrior with Culena's charms."
Thus said the king. Their willing hands they join,
The rev'rend priest runs o'er the rites divine.
The solemn ceremony closed with pray'r,
And Duffus called his own the royal fair.
The storm is ceased; the clouds together fly,
And clear at once the azure fields of sky;
The mid-day sun pours down his sultry flame,
And the wet heath waves glist'ring in the beam.
The hunter-chiefs appear upon the brow,
Fall down the hill, and join the king below;
Slow through the narrow vale their steps they bear,
Behind advance the spoils of sylvan war.
Far on a head-land point condensed they stood,
And threw their eyes o'er ocean's sable flood;
Tall ships advance afar; their canvas sails
In their swoll'n bosom gather all the gales;
Floating along the sable back of sea,
Before the wind they cut their spumy way;
Bend in their course, majestically slow,
And to the land their lazy journey plow.
Thus spungy clouds on heav'n's blue vault arise,
And float, before the wind, along the skies;
Their wings opposed to the illustrious sun,
Shine, as they move, majestically on.
Thus godlike Harold brought his floating aid,
Unknowing Sueno's numbered with the dead.
From Anglia's coasts he called his troops afar,
To aid his brother in the foreign war.
Arrived, he in the wave the anchor throws,
Attempts to land, and Albion's chiefs oppose;
Wave on the fatal shore the pointed spear,
And send the arrow whizzing through the air.
The Danes return the flying death afar,
And, as they crowd away, maintain the war.
An arrow tore through air its murmʼring path,
Fell on the king, and weighed him down to death:
Quick, from the wound, the blood tumult'ous sprung,
And o'er the sand the reeking weapon flung:
Prone on the strand an awful trunk he lies,
his eyes.
While sleep eternal steals upon
The mournful chiefs around the dying stood,
Some raise the body, others stem the blood:
In vain their care;-the soul for ever fled,
And fate had numbered Indulph with the dead.
Culena, whom young Duffus set apart,
With a green bank secured the hostile dart.
Her father's fate assailed her tender ear,
She beat her snowy breast, and tore her hair:
Frantic along the sand she run, she flew,
And on the corse distressful beauty threw :
She called her father's shade with filial cries,
And all the daughter streaming from her eyes.
Bent on revenge the furious Duffus strode,
And eyed, with angry look, the sable flood.
|