Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

"WITHOUT THE SMILE FROM PARTIAL BEAUTY WON, OH, WHAT WERE MAN?

A. WORLD WITHOUT A SUN."-CAMPBELL.

104

[ocr errors]

FREEDOM SHRIEKED-AS KOSCIUSKO FELL!"-THOMAS CAMPBELL.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

[graphic]

" Lamenting take a mournful leave of her who loved thee most."]

The hand is gone that cropped its flowers!
Unheard their clock repeats its hours!-
Cold is the hearth within their bowers!
And should we thither roam,
Its echoes, and its empty tread,

Would sound like voices from the dead!

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

"ABOVE, BELOW, IN OCEAN, EARTH, AND SKY, THY FAERY WORLDS, IMAGINATION, LIE!"-THOMAS CAMPBELL.

"WHEN SCIENCE FROM CREATION'S FACE ENCHANTMENT'S VEIL WITHDRAWS CAMPBELL)

"TO BEAR IS TO CONQUER OUR FATE."-T. CAMPbell.

LOCHIEL'S WARNING.

"But hark, the trump!-to-morrow thou

In glory's fires shall dry thy tears:
Ev'n from the land of shadows now
My father's awful ghost appears,

Amidst the clouds that round us roll!
He bids my soul for battle thirst-
He bids me dry the last-the first—
The only tears that ever burst

From Outalissi's soul!

Because I may not stain with grief
The death-song of an Indian chief!"

[From "Gertrude of Wyoming."]

105

LOCHIEL'S WARNING.

WIZARD.

OCHIEL, Lochiel! beware of the day,*
When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array !

For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight:
They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown;
Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down!
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.-
But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning: no rider is there ;
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.

*This interview between Lochiel, a Jacobite chief, who risked all in
support of Prince Charles Edward, and a Highland seer or wizard, is sup-
posed to have taken place shortly before the battle of Culloden (1746).

"PENSIVE BEAUTY SMILING IN HER TEARS."-CAMPBell.

WHAT LOVELY VISIONS YIELD THEIR PLACE TO COLD MATERIAL LAWS!"-T. CAMPBELL.

"MAN WILL ASK NO TRUCE TO DEATH, NO BOUNDS TO HUMAN WOE."-THOMAS CAMPBELL.

106

66 TRUTH, EVER LOVELY SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN."-CAMPBELL.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!
Oh, weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead :
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,

Culloden that reeks with the blood of the brave.

LOCHIEL..

Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer!
Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,

Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight,
This mantle to cover the phantoms of fright.

SHAME TO THE INWARD THOUGHT THAT E'ER BETRAYED THE NOON OF MANHOOD TO A MYRTLE SHADE."-CAMPBELL.

WIZARD.

Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?
Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn !
Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth,

From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad:

But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed-for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyrie, that beacons the darkness of Heaven.
Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlement's height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!
For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.

LOCHIEL.

False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan :
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!

"" THE FOE OF TYRANTS, AND THE FRIEND OF MAN."-CAMPBELL.

"OH! LIVES THERE, HEAVEN, BENEATH THY DREAD EXPANSE, ONE HOPELESS, DARK IDOLATER OF CHANCE?"-CAMPBELL.

66

BUT MORTAL PLEASURE, WHAT ART THOU, IN TRUTH?-(CAMPBELL)

[blocks in formation]

They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But woe to his kindred and woe to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws;
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud;
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array—

WIZARD.

-Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day!

For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would reveal :
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring
With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king.

Lo! anointed by Heaven with vials of wrath,
Behold where he flies on his desolate path!

Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight :
Rise! rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!......
'Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors;
Culloden is lost, and my country deplores;
But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where?
For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.
Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn,
Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn?
Ah no! for a darker departure is near;
The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier;
His death-bell is tolling; oh! mercy, dispel
Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims.

THE TORRENT'S SMOOTHNESS ERE IT DASH BELOW!"-T. CAMPBELL.

"WHAT THOUGH MY WINGED HOURS OF BLISS HAVE BEEN, LIKE ANGEL-VISITS, FEW AND FAR BETWEEN!"-CAMPBELL.

108

SHALL NATURE BOUND TO EARTH'S DIURNAL SPAN,

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Accursed be the faggots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown ere it ceases to beat,
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale—

LOCHIEL.

-Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale ;
For never shall Albin a destiny meet

So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat.

Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore,
Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,

Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,

While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!
And, leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.

[From the "Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell."]

BRIGHT AS THE PILLAR ROSE AT HEAVEN'S COMMAND, WHEN ISRAEL MARCHED ALONG THE DESERT LAND;

SO, HEAVENLY GENIUS, IN THY COURSE DIVINE, HOPE IS THY STAR, HER LIGHT IS EVER THINE."-CAMPBELL.

MAN THE HERMIT.

ILL Hymen brought his love-delighted hour,
There dwelt no joy in Eden's rosy bower!
In vain the viewless seraph, lingering there,
At starry midnight charmed the silent air;
In vain the wild-bird carolled on the steep,
To hail the sun, slow-wheeling from the deep;
In vain, to soothe the solitary shade,
Aërial notes in mingled measure played;
The summer wind that shook the spangled tree,
The whispering wave, the murmur of the bee;—
Still slowly passed the melancholy day,

And still the stranger wist not where to stray,—

THE FIRE OF GOD, THE IMMORTAL SOUL OF MAN,

« AnteriorContinuar »