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Lone on the outskirts of the host,
The weary sentinel held post,

And heard, through darkness, far aloof,
The frequent clang of courser's hoof,

Where held the cloak'd patrol their course,

And spurr'd 'gainst storm the swerving horse;
But there are sounds in Allan's ear

Patrol nor sentinel may hear;
And sights before his eyes aghast
Invisible to them have pass'd,

When down the destined plain
"Twixt Britain and the bands of France,
Wild as marsh-borne meteors glance,
Strange phantoms wheel'd a revel dance,
And doom'd the future slain.-

Such forms were seen, such sounds were heard,

When Scotland's James his march prepared

For Flodden's fatal plain;

Such, when he drew his ruthless sword,
As choosers of the slain, adored

The yet unchristen'd Dane.
An indistinct and phantom band,

They wheel'd their ring-dance hand in hand,
With gesture wild and dread;

The seer, who watch'd them ride the storm,
Saw through their faint and shadowy form
The lightnings flash more red;

And still their ghastly roundelay Was of the coming battle-fray, And of the destined dead.

SONG.

Wheel the wild dance,
While lightnings glance,

And thunders rattle loud,
And call the brave

To bloody grave,

To sleep without a shroud.

Our airy feet,

So light and fleet,

They do not bend the rye,

That sinks its head when whirlwinds rave, And swells again in eddying wave,

As each wild gust blows by;

But still the corn,

At dawn of morn,

Our fatal steps that bore,

At eve lies waste,

A trampled paste

Of blackening mud and gore.

Wheel the wild dance,

While lightnings glance,

And thunders rattle loud, And call the brave

To bloody grave,

To sleep without a shroud.

Wheel the wild dance,

Brave sons of France!

For you our ring makes room; Make space full wide For martial pride,

For banner, spear, and plume. Approach, draw near,

Proud cuirassier!

Room for the men of steel!
Through crest and plate
The broadsword's weight,

Both head and heart shall feel.

Wheel the wild dance,
While lightnings glance,

And thunders rattle loud,
And call the brave

To bloody grave,

To sleep without a shroud.

Sons of the spear!

You feel us near,

In many a ghastly dream; With fancy's eye

Our forms you spy,

And hear our fatal scream.

With clearer sight

Ere falls the night,

Just when to weal or wo

Your disembodied souls take flight
On trembling wing-each startled sprite
Our choir of death shall know.

Wheel the wild dance,
While lightnings glance,

And thunders rattle loud,

And call the brave

To bloody grave,

To sleep without a shroud.

Burst, ye clouds, in tempest showers,
Redder rain shall soon be ours-

See, the east grows wan-
Yield we place to sterner game,
Ere deadlier bolts and drearer flame
Shall the welkin's thunders shame;
Elemental rage is tame

To the wrath of man.

At morn, gray Allan's mates with awe
Heard of the vision'd sights he saw,

The legend heard him say:
But the seer's gifted eye was dim,
Deafen'd his ear, and stark his limb,
Ere closed that bloody day.

He sleeps far from his highland heath-
But often of the Dance of Death

His comrades tell the tale

On piquet-post, when ebbs the night,
And waning watch-fires grow less bright,
And dawn is glimmering pale.

FAREWELL TO THE MUSE. ENCHANTRESS, farewell, who so oft has decoy'd me, At the close of the evening, through woodlands to roam,

Where the forester, lated, with wonder espied me Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home. Farewell, and take with thee thy numbers wild, speaking

The language alternate of rapture and wo: O! none but some lover, whose heart-strings are breaking,

The pang that I feel at our parting can know.

Each joy thou couldst double, and when there came sorrow,

Or pale disappointment, to darken my way, What voice was like thine, that could sing of to

morrow,

Till forgot in the strain was the grief of to-day! But when friends drop around us in life's weary

waning,

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Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart? And, O! was it meet that, no requiem read o'er him,

The grief, queen of numbers, thou canst not as- No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,

suage;

Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining,

The languor of pain, and the chillness of age.

"Twas thou that once taught me, in accents bewailing,

To sing how a warrior lay stretch'd on the plain, And a maiden hung o'er him with aid unavailing, And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain ; As vain those enchantments, O queen of wild numbers,

To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o'er, And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers. Farewell then! Enchantress! I meet thee no

more.

And thou, little guardian, alone stretch'd before him,

Unhonour'd the pilgrim from life should depart?

When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,

The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;

With 'scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded, And pages stand mute by the canopied pall: Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;

In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beaming;

Far adown the lone aisle sacred music is streaming, Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb:

Welcome, from sweeping o'er sea and through channel,

Hardships and danger despising for fame,

When, wilder'd, he drops from some cliff huge in Furnishing story for glory's bright annal,

stature,

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam. And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,

Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying, With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying, In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

Welcome, my wanderer, to Jeanie and hame! Enough, now thy story in annals of glory,

Has humbled the pride of France, Holland, and Spain;

No more shalt thou grieve me, no more shalt thou

leave me,

I never will part with my Willie again.

WANDERING WILLIE.

ALL joy was bereft me the day that you left me, And climb'd the tall vessel to sail yon wide sea;

O weary betide it! I wander'd beside it,

And bann'd it for parting my Willie and me.

Far o'er the wave hast thou follow'd thy fortune, Oft fought the squadrons of France and of Spain; Ae kiss of welcome's worth twenty at parting, Now I hae gotten my Willie again.

When the sky it was mirk, and the winds they were wailing,

I sat on the beach wi' the tear in my e'e, And thought o' the bark where my Willie was sailing,

And wish'd that the tempest could a' blaw on me.

Now that thy gallant ship rides at her mooring,
Now that my wanderer's in safety at hame,
Music to me were the wildest winds' roaring,
That e'er o'er Inch-Keith drove the dark ocean
faem.

When the lights they did blaze, and the guns they

did rattle,

And blithe was each heart for the great victory, In secret I wept for the dangers of battle,

And thy glory itself was scarce comfort to me.

But now shalt thou tell, while I eagerly listen,
Of each bold adventure, and every brave scar,
And, trust me, I'll smile though my e'en they may
glisten;

For sweet after danger's the tale of the war.

And O! how we doubt when there's distance 'tween lovers,

When there's naething to speak to the heart thro'

the e'e;

How often the kindest and warmest prove rovers, And the love of the faithfullest ebbs like the sea.

Till, at times, could I help it? I pined and I ponder'd,

If love could change notes like the bird on the tree

Now I'll ne'er ask if thine eyes may hae wander'd, Enough, thy leal heart has been constant to me.

HUNTING SONG.

WAKEN, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day,
All the jolly chase is here,

With hawk, and horse, and hunting spear;
Hounds are in their couples yelling,
Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling,
Merrily, merrily, mingle they,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."

Waken, lords and ladies gay,

The mist has left the mountain gray,
Springlets in the dawn are streaming,
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming;
And foresters have busy been,
To track the buck in thicket green;
Now we come to chant our lay,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."

Waken, lords and ladies gay,
To the greenwood haste away
We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot, and tall of size ;
We can show the marks he made,
When 'gainst the oak his antlers fray'd;
You shall see him brought to bay,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."

Louder, louder chant the lay,
Waken, lords and ladies gay!
Tell them youth, and mirth, and glee,
Run a course as well as we:
Time, stern huntsman! who can balk,
Stanch as hound, and fleet as hawk:
Think of this, and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay.

THE BARD'S INCANTATION.

WRITTEN UNDER THE THREAT OF INVASION, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1804.

THE forest of Glenmore is drear,

It is all of black pine and the dark oak tree; And the midnight wind to the mountain deer Is whistling the forest lullaby:

The moon looks through the drifting storm,
But the troubled lake reflects not her form,
For the waves roll whitening to the land,
And dash against the shelvy strand.

There is a voice among the trees

That mingles with the groaning oakThat mingles with the stormy breeze,

And the lake-waves dashing against the rock; There is a voice within the wood,

The voice of the bard in fitful mood;

His song was louder than the blast,

As the bard of Glenmore through the forest past.

"Wake ye from your sleep of death,

Minstrels and bards of other days!
For the midnight wind is on the heath,
And the midnight meteors dimly blaze:
The spectre with his bloody hand,*
Is wandering through the wild woodland;
The owl and the raven are mute for dread,
And the time is meet to awake the dead!

"Souls of the mighty, wake and say,

To what high strain your harps were strung, When Lochlin plough'd her billowy way,

And on your shores her Norsemen flung?
Her Norsemen train'd to spoil and blood,
Skill'd to prepare the raven's food,
All by your harpings doom'd to die
On bloody Largs and Loncarty.†

"Mute are ye all: No murmurs strange
Upon the midnight breeze sail by;
Nor through the pines with whistling change,
Mimic the harp's wild harmony!
Mute are ye now ?-Ye ne'er were mute,
When Murder with his bloody foot,
And Rapine with his iron hand,
Were hovering near yon mountain strand.

"O yet awake the strain to tell,

By every deed in song enroll'd,
By every chief who fought or fell,

For Albion's weal in battle bold;-
From Coilgach, first who rolled his car,
Through the deep ranks of Roman war,
To him, of veteran memory dear,
Who victor died on Aboukir.

"By all their swords, by all their scars,
By all their names, a mighty spell!
By all their wounds, by all their wars,
Arise, the mighty strain to tell!
Fiercer than fierce Hengist's strain,
More impious than the heathen Dane,
More grasping than all-grasping Rome,
Gaul's ravening legions hither come !"-
The wind is hush'd, and still the lake-
Strange murmurs fill my tingling ears,
Bristles my hair, my sinews quake,

At the dread voice of other years

The forest of Glenmore is haunted by a spirit called Lhamdearg, or Red-hand.

Where the Norwegian invader of Scotland received two bloody defeats.

The Galgacus of Tacitus.

"When targets clash'd, and bugles rung,
And blades round warriors' heads were flung,
The foremost of the band were we,
And hymn'd the joys of Liberty!"

ROMANCE OF DUNOIS.

FROM THE FRENCH.

THE original of this little romance makes part of a manuscript collection of French songs, probably compiled by some young officer, which was found on the field of Waterloo, so much stained with clay and blood, as sufficiently to indicate what had been the fate of its late owner. The song is popular in France, and is rather a good specimen of the style of composition to which it belongs. The translation is strictly literal.

Ir was Dunois, the young and brave,
Was bound for Palestine,

But first he made his orison

Before Saint Mary's shrine:

"And grant, immortal queen of heaven," Was still the soldier's prayer,

"That I may prove the bravest knight, And love the fairest fair."

His oath of honour on the shrine

He graved it with his sword,
And follow'd to the Holy Land

The banner of his lord;
Where, faithful to his noble vow,

His war-cry fill'd the air, "Be honour'd aye the bravest knight, Beloved the fairest fair."

They owed the conquest to his arm,
And then his liege lord said,
"The heart that has for honour beat,
By bliss must be repaid ;--
My daughter Isabel and thou
Shall be a wedded pair,
For thou art bravest of the brave,
She fairest of the fair."

And then they bound the holy knot
Before Saint Mary's shrine,
That makes a paradise on earth,
If hearts and hands combine:
And every lord and lady bright
That were in chapel there,
Cried, "Honour'd be the bravest knight,
Beloved the fairest fair!"

THE TROUBADOUR.

GLOWING with love, on fire for fame,
A Troubadour that hated sorrow,
Beneath his lady's window came,
And thus he sung his last good morrow:

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