And at the Island Lord's command.
For hunting spear took warrior's brand.
On Scooreigg next a warning light
Summon'd her warriors to the fight;
A numerous race, ere stern Macleod
O'er their bleak shores in vengeance strode,1
When all in vain the ocean-cave

Its refuge to his victims gave.

The Chief, relentless in his wrath,
With blazing heath blockades the path;
In dense and stifling volumes roll'd,
The vapour filled the cavern'd hold!
The warrior-threat, the infant's plain,
The mother's screams, were heard in vain;
The vengeful Chief maintains his fires,
Till in the vault2 a tribe expires!
The bones which strew that cavern's gloom,
Too well attest their dismal doom.

X.

Merrily, merrily goes the bark

On a breeze from the northward free, So shoots through the morning sky the lark, Or the swan through the summer sea. The shores of Mull on the eastward lay, And Ulva dark and Colonsay,

And all the group of islets gay

That guard famed Staffa round. Then all unknown its columns rose, Where dark and undisturbed repose3 The cormorant had found,

1 [See Appendix, Note 2 L.]

2 [MS. Till in their smoke," &c.]

[MS.-"Where niched, his undisturb'd repose."]

And the shy seal had quiet home,
And welter'd in that wondrous dome,
Where, as to shame the temples deck'd
By skill of earthly architect,

Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise
A Minster to her Maker's praise ! 1
Not for a meaner use ascend
Her columns, or her arches bend;
Nor of a theme less solemn tells
That mighty surge, that ebbs and swells,
And still, between each awful pause,
From the high vault an answer draws,
In varied tone prolong'd and high,
That mocks the organ's melody.
Nor doth its entrance front in vain
To old Iona's holy fane,

That Nature's voice might seem to say,
"Well hast thou done, frail Child of clay !
Thy humble powers that stately shrine
Task'd high and hard-but witness mine!"?

XI.

Merrily, merrily goes the bark,

Before the gale she bounds;

So darts the dolphin from the shark,
Or the deer before the hounds.

1 [See Appendix, Note 2 M.]

[The MS. adds,

"Which, when the ruins of thy pile
Cumber the desolated isle,

Firm and immutable shall stand,

'Gainst winds, and waves, and spoiler's hand."]

They left Loch-Tua on their lee,

And they waken'd the men of the wild Tiree,
And the Chief of the sandy Coll;
They pause not at Columba's isle,
Though peal'd the bells from the holy pile
With long and measured toll ;1

No time for matin or for mass,

And the sounds of the holy summons pass
Away in the billows' roll.

Lochbuie's fierce and warlike Lord
Their signal saw, and grasp'd his sword,
And verdant Ilay call'd her host,
And the clans of Jura's rugged coast
Lord Ronald's call obey,

And Scarba's isle, whose tortured shore
Still rings to Corrievreken's roar,

And lonely Colonsay;

-Scenes sung by him who sings no more!
His bright and brief" career is o'er,

And mute his tuneful strains;

Quench'd is his lamp of varied lore,

1["We were now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage Cans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish, if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."-JOHNSON.]

[MS.-"His short but bright," &c.]

That loved the light of song to pour;
A distant and a deadly shore

Has LEYDEN's cold remains! 11

XII.

Ever the breeze blows merrily,

But the galley ploughs no more the sea.
Lest, rounding wild Cantire, they meet
The southern foeman's watchful fleet,
They held unwonted way;—

Up Tarbat's western lake they bore,
Then dragg'd their bark the isthmus o'er,
As far as Kilmaconnel's shore,
Upon the eastern bay.

It was a wondrous sight to see
Topmast and pennon glitter free
High raised above the greenwood tree,
As on dry land the galley moves,
By cliff and copse and alder groves.
Deep import from that selcouth sign,
Did many a mountain Seer divine,
For ancient legends told the Gael,
That when a royal bark should sail

1 The ballad, entitled "Macphail of Colonsay, and the Mermaid of Corrievrekin," [See Border Minstrelsy, vol. iv. p. 285,] was composed by John Leyden, from a tradition which he found while making a tour through the Hebrides about 1801, soon before his fatal departure for India, where, after having made farther progress in Oriental literature than any man of letters who had embraced those studies, he died a martyr to his zeal for knowledge, in the island of Java, immediately after the landing of our forces near Batavia, in August, 1811.

2 [See Appendix, Note 2 N.]

O'er Kilmaconnel moss,

Old Albyn should in fight prevail,

And every foe should faint and quail
Before her silver Cross.

XIII.

Now launch'd once more, the inland sea
They furrow with fair augury,

And steer for Arran's isle:
The sun, ere yet he sunk behind
Ben-Ghoil, "the Mountain of the Wind,"
Gave his grim peaks a greeting kind,
And bade Loch Ranza smile.1

Thither their destined course they drew;
It seem'd the isle her monarch knew,
So brilliant was the landward view,
The ocean so serene;

Each puny wave in diamonds roll'd
O'er the calm deep, where hues of gold
With azure strove and green..

The hill, the vale, the tree, the tower,
Glow'd with the tints of evening's hour,
The beach was silver sheen,

The wind breathed soft as lover's sigh,
And, oft renew'd, seem'd oft to die,

With breathless pause between.
O who, with speech of war and woes,
Would wish to break the soft repose
Of such enchanting scene!

XIV.

Is it of war Lord Ronald speaks?

The blush that dyes his manly cheeks,

1 [See Appendix, Note 20.]