— Speeches and Verses / Campbell, John Douglas Sutherland, 1845-1914

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by John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

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Title: Memories of Canada and Scotland
       Speeches and Verses

Author: John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7212]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on March 27, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES OF CANADA AND SCOTLAND ***




Produced by Susan Skinner, Tom Allen, Juliet Sutherland,
Charles Franks, and the DP Team




MEMORIES OF CANADA AND SCOTLAND

_SPEECHES AND VERSES_

BY THE RIGHT HON. THE MARQUIS OF LORNE
K.T., G.C.M.G., &C.



DEDICATED WITH RESPECT AND AFFECTION TO
THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA



CONTENTS

_VERSES ON CANADIAN SUBJECTS._

CANADA, 1882

QUEBEC

PROLOGUE--GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MARCH 1879

CANADIAN NATIONAL HYMN

CANADIAN RIVER RHYMES

THE CANADIAN ROBIN

MILICETE LEGEND OF THE RIVER ST. JOHN

THE GUIDE OF THE MOHAWKS

THE STRONG HUNTER

THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN CORN

THE ISLES OF HURON

THE MYSTIC ISLE OF THE "LAND OF THE NORTH WIND"

WESTWARD HO!

THE SONG OF THE SIX SISTERS

THE PRAIRIE ROSES

CREE FAIRIES

THE "QU'APPELLE" VALLEY

THE BLACKFEET

SAN GABRIEL, ON THE PACIFIC COAST

NIAGARA

ON CHIEF MOUNTAIN

CUBA

ON THE NEW PROVINCE "ALBERTA"


_VERSES CHIEFLY FROM HIGHLAND STORIES._

GAELIC LEGENDS

COLHORN

LOCH BUY

THE HARD STRAIT OF THE FEINNE

TOBERMORY BAY, 1588

LOCH UISK, ISLE OF MULL

THE LADY'S ROCK

THE POOL OF THE IRON SHIRT

INVERAWE

AN ISLESMAN'S FAREWELL

PREFACE TO DIARMID'S STORY

GRINIE'S FLIGHT WITH DIARMID

THE DEATH OF THE BOAR

KING ARTHUR AND THE CAPTIVE MAIDEN

SEANN ORAN GAILIC

DUNOLLY'S DAUGHTER

THE ARMADA GUN

CAVALRY CHARGE--KONIGGRATZ

THE IRISH EMIGRANT, 1880

THE IRISH EMIGRANT, 1883

SONG

SONNET ON THE DEATH OF LORD F. DOUGLAS

SADOWA

ON A FOREIGN WAR-SHIP'S SALUTE TO THE QUEEN'S STANDARD


_SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES._

FAREWELL ADDRESS AT INVERARAY

EMBARKING AT LIVERPOOL

REPLY TO THE LIVERPOOL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

TO THE MUNICIPALITY OF LONDONDERRY

AT MONTREAL--TO THE ST. ANDREWS SOCIETY

AT MONTREAL--REPLY TO THE CITIZENS' ADDRESS

AT OTTAWA--REPLY TO THE CITIZENS' ADDRESS

AT OTTAWA--DISTRIBUTION OF SCHOOL PRIZES

AT KINGSTON--ON RECEIVING THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF LAWS OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE

AT KINGSTON--TO THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE

AT KINGSTON--TO THE CADETS OF THE ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE

AT MONTREAL--REVIEW ON THE QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY, 1879

AT MONTREAL--OPENING OF AN ART INSTITUTE

AT QUEBEC--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE CITY CORPORATION

AT QUEBEC--LAVAL UNIVERSITY

AT TORONTO--TORONTO CLUB DINNER

AT ST. JOHN, N.B.

AT ST. JOHN, N.B.--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE CITY CORPORATION

AT FREDERICTON--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE CITY CORPORATION

IN KINGS' COUNTY, N.B.--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE MUNICIPALITY

AT TORONTO--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE CITY CORPORATION

AT BERLIN, ONTARIO--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE GERMAN RESIDENTS

AT OTTAWA--EXHIBITION OF 1880

AT OTTAWA--EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN ACADEMY OF ART

AT QUEBEC--FESTIVAL OF ST. JEAN BAPTISTE

AT HAMILTON--OPENING OF PROVINCIAL FAIR

AT MONTREAL--OPENING OF PROVINCIAL FAIR

AT MONTREAL--LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THE REDPATH MUSEUM OF THE
MCGILL COLLEGE

AT CHAMBLY--UNVEILING THE STATUE OF COLONEL DE SALABERRY

AT ST. THOMAS--GATHERING OF HIGHLANDERS

AT WINNIPEG--IMPRESSIONS OF A TOUR IN THE NORTHWEST

AT WINNIPEG--SOCIETY OF ST. JEAN BAPTISTE OF MANITOBA

AT WINNIPEG--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF ST. BONIFACE--MANITOBA

AT WINNIPEG--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE BOARD OF MANAGEMENT OF MANITOBA
COLLEGE

AT FORT SHAW, MONTANA--FAREWELL TO THE NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE

AT OTTAWA--INCEPTION OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA

AT SAN FRANCISCO, CAL--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE BRITISH RESIDENTS

AT VICTORIA, B.C.--SPEECH AT A PUBLIC DINNER

AT OTTAWA--MEETING OF THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION

AT OTTAWA--SECOND MEETING OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA

AT TORONTO--REPLY TO ADDRESSES OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY AND OF THE ONTARIO
SOCIETY OF ARTISTS

AT OTTAWA--FAREWELL ADDRESS OF THE PARLIAMENT OF CANADA

REPLY

EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


_APPENDIX._

AT TORONTO--EXHIBITION OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES

AT TORONTO--REPLY TO ADDRESS AT THE QUEEN'S PARK

AT OTTAWA--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE CITY CORPORATION

AT MONTREAL--REPLY TO ADDRESS OF THE CITY CORPORATION

AT QUEBEC--REPLY, OCT. 20TH 1883, TO ADDRESS OF THE CITY CORPORATION






VERSES ON CANADIAN SUBJECTS.


_CANADA_, 1882.

"Are hearts here strong enough to found
  A glorious people's sway?"
Ask of our rivers as they bound
From hill to plain, or ocean-sound,
  If they are strong to-day?
If weakness in their floods be found,
  Then may ye answer "Nay!"

"Is union yours? may foeman's might
  Your love ne'er break or chain?"
Go see if o'er our land the flight
Of Spring be stayed by blast or blight;
  If Fall bring never grain;
If Summer suns deny their light,
  Then may our hope be vain!

"Yet far too cramped the narrow space
  Your country's rule can own?"
Ah! travel all its bounds and trace
Each Alp unto its fertile base,
  Our realm of forests lone,
Our world of prairie, like the face
  Of ocean, hardly known!

"Yet for the arts to find a shrine,
  Too rough, I ween, and rude?"
Yea, if you find no flower divine
With prairie grass or hardy pine.
  No lilies with the wood,
Or on the water-meadows' line
  No purple Iris' flood!

"You deem a nation here shall stand,
  United, great, and free?"
Yes, see how Liberty's own hand
With ours the continent hath spanned,
  Strong-arched, from sea to sea:
Our Canada's her chosen land,
  Her roof and crown to be!



_QUEBEC._

O fortress city, bathed by streams
  Majestic as thy memories great,
  Where mountains, floods, and forests mate
The grandeur of the glorious dreams,
  Born of the hero hearts who died
  In founding here an Empire's pride;
Prosperity attend thy fate,
  And happiness in thee abide,
Pair Canada's strong tower and gate!

May Envy, that against thy might
  Dashed hostile hosts to surge and break,
  Bring Commerce, emulous to make
Thy people share her fruitful fight,
  In filling argosies with store
  Of grain and timber, and each ore,
And all a continent can shake
  Into thy lap, till more and more
Thy praise in distant worlds awake.

Who hath not known delight whose feet
  Have paced thy streets or terrace way;
  From rampart sod or bastion grey
Hath marked thy sea-like river greet.

  The bright and peopled banks which shine
  In front of the far mountain's line;
Thy glittering roofs below, the play
  Of currents where the ships entwine
Their spars, or laden pass away?

As we who joyously once rode
  Past guarded gates to trumpet sound,
  Along the devious ways that wound
O'er drawbridges, through moats, and showed
  The vast St. Lawrence flowing, belt
  The Orleans Isle, and sea-ward melt;
Then by old walls with cannon crowned,
  Down stair-like streets, to where we felt
  The salt winds blown o'er meadow ground.

Where flows the Charles past wharf and dock.
  And Learning from Laval looks down,
  And quiet convents grace the town.
There swift to meet the battle shock
  Montcalm rushed on; and eddying back,
  Red slaughter marked the bridge's track:
See now the shores with lumber brown,
  And girt with happy lands which lack
No loveliness of Summer's crown.

Quaint hamlet-alleys, border-filled
  With purple lilacs, poplars tall,
  Where flits the yellow bird, and fall
The deep eave shadows. There when tilled
The peasant's field or garden bed,
  He rests content if o'er his head
From silver spires the church-bells call
  To gorgeous shrines, and prayers that gild
The simple hopes and lives of all.

Winter is mocked by garbs of green,
  Worn by the copses flaked with snow,--
  White spikes and balls of bloom, that blow
In hedgerows deep; and cattle seen
  In meadows spangled thick with gold,
  And globes where lovers' fates are told
Around the red-doored houses low;
  While rising o'er them, fold on fold,
The distant hills in azure glow.

Oft in the woods we long delayed,
  When hours were minutes all too brief,
  For Nature knew no sound of grief;
But overhead the breezes played,
  And in the dank grass at our knee,
  Shone pearls of our green forest sea,
The star-white flowers of triple leaf
  Which love around the brooks to be,
Within the birch and maple shade.

At times we passed some fairy mere
  Embosomed in the leafy screen,
  And streaked with tints of heaven's sheen,
Where'er the water's surface clear
  Bore not the hues of verdant light
  From myriad boughs on mountain height,
Or near the shadowed banks were seen
  The sparkles that in circlets bright
Told where the fishes' feast had been.

And when afar the forests flushed
  In falling swathes of fire, there soared
  Dark clouds where muttering thunder roared,
And mounting vapours lurid rushed,
  While a metallic lustre flew
  Upon the vivid verdure's hue,
Before the blasts and rain forth poured,
  And slow o'er mighty landscapes drew
The grandest pageant of the Lord:

The threatening march of flashing cloud,
  With tumults of embattled air,
  Blest conflicts for the good they bear!
A century has God allowed
  None other, since the days He gave
  Unequal fortune to the brave.
Comrades in death! you live to share
  An equal honour, for your grave
Bade Enmity take Love as heir!

We watched, when gone day's quivering haze,
  The loops of plunging foam that beat
  The rocks at Montmorenci's feet
Stab the deep gloom with moonlit rays;
  Or from the fortress saw the streams
  Sweep swiftly o'er the pillared beams;
White shone the roofs, and anchored fleet,
  And grassy slopes where nod in dreams
Pale hosts of sleeping Marguerite.

Or when the dazzling Frost King mailed
  Would clasp the wilful waterfall,
  Fast leaping to her snowy hall
She fled; and where her rainbows hailed
  Her freedom, painting all her home,
  We climbed her spray-built palace dome,
Shot down the radiant glassy wall
  Until we reached the snowdrift foam,
As shoots to waves some meteor ball.

Then homeward, hearing song or tale,
  With chime of harness bells we sped
  Above the frozen river bed.
The city, through a misty veil,
  Gleamed from her cape, where sunset fire
  Touched louvre and cathedral spire,
Bathed ice and snow a rosy red,
  So beautiful that men's desire
For May-time's rival wonders fled:

What glories hath this gracious land,
  Fit home for many a hardy race;
  Where liberty has broadest base,
And labour honours every hand!
  Throughout her triply thousand miles
  The sun upon each season smiles,
And every man has scope and space,
  And kindliness, from strand to strand,
Alone is born to right of place!

Such were our memories. May they yet
  Be shared by others, sent to be
  Signs of the union of the free
And kindred peoples God hath set
  O'er famous isles, and fertile zones
  Of continents! Or if new thrones
And mighty States arise, may He
  Whose potent hand yon river owns
Smooth their great future's shrouded Sea!



_PROLOGUE._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _March_ 1879.

A moment's pause before we play our parts,
To speak the thought that reigns within your hearts.--
Now from the Future's hours, and unknown days,
Affection turns, and with the Past delays;
For countless voices in our mighty land
Speak the fond praises of a vanished hand;
And shall, to mightier ages yet, proclaim
The happy memories linked with Dufferin's name.

Missed here is he, to whom each class and creed,
Among our people lately bade "God speed;"
Missed, when each Winter sees the skater wheel
In ringing circle on the flashing steel;
Missed in the Spring, the Summer and the Fall,
In many a hut, as in the Council Hall;
Where'er his wanderings on Duty's hest
Evoked his glowing speech, his genial jest.
We mourn his absence, though we joy that now
Old England's honours cluster round his brow,
And that he left us but to serve again
Our Queen and Empire on the Neva's plain!

Amidst the honoured roll of those whose fate
It was to crown our fair Canadian State,
And bind in one bright diadem alone,
Each glorious Province, each resplendent stone,
His name shall last, and his example give
To all her sons a lesson how to live:
How every task, if met with heart as bold,
Proves the hard rock is seamed with precious gold,
And Labour, when with Mirth and Love allied,
Finds friends far stronger than in Force and Pride,
And Sympathy and Kindness can be made
The potent weapons by which men are swayed.
He proved a nation's trust can well be won
By loyal work and constant duty done;
The wit that winged the wisdom of his word
Set forth our glories, till all Europe heard
How wide the room our Western World can spare
For all who nobly toil and bravely dare.

And while the statesman we revere, we know
In him the friend is gone, to whom we owe
So much of gaiety, so much which made
Life's duller round to seem in joy repaid.
These little festivals by him made bright,
With grateful thoughts of him renewed to-night,
Remind no less of her who deigned to grace
This mimic world, and fill therein her place
With the sweet dignity and gracious mien
The race of Hamilton has often seen;
But never shown upon the wider stage
Where the great "cast" is writ on History's page,
More purely, nobly, than by her, whose voice
Here moved to tears, or made the heart rejoice,
And who in act and word, at home, or far,
Shone with calm beauty like the Northern Star!

Green as the Shamrock of their native Isle
Their memory lives, and babes unborn shall smile
And share in happiness the pride that blends
Our country's name with her beloved friends!



_A NATIONAL HYMN._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _March_ 1880.

From our Dominion never
  Take Thy protecting hand,
United, Lord, for ever
  Keep Thou our fathers' land!
From where Atlantic terrors
  Our hardy seamen train,
To where the salt sea mirrors
  The vast Pacific chain.
    Aye one with her whose thunder
      Keeps world-watch with the hours,
    Guard Freedom's home and wonder,
      "This Canada of ours."

Fair days of fortune send her,
  Be Thou her Shield and Sun!
Our land, our flag's Defender,
  Unite our hearts as one!
One flag, one land, upon her
  May every blessing rest I
For loyal faith and honour
  Her children's deeds attest
    Aye one with her, &c.

No stranger's foot, insulting,
  Shall tread our country's soil;
While stand her sons exulting
  For her to live and toil.
She hath the victor's guerdon,
  Her's are the conquering hours,
No foeman's yoke shall burden
  "This Canada of ours."
    Aye one with her, &c.

Our sires, when times were sorest,
  Asked none but aid Divine,
And cleared the tangled forest,
  And wrought the buried mine.
They tracked the floods and fountains,
  And won, with master-hand,
Far more than gold in mountains,
  The glorious Prairie-land.
    Aye one with her, &c,

O Giver of earth's treasure,
  Make Thou our nation strong;
Pour forth Thine hot displeasure
  On all who work our wrong!
To our remotest border
  Let plenty still increase,
Let Liberty and Order,
  Bid ancient feuds to cease.
    Aye one with her, &c.

May Canada's fair daughters
  Keep house for hearts as bold
As theirs who o'er the waters
  Came hither first of old.
The pioneers of nations!
  They showed the world the way;
Tis ours to keep their stations,
  And lead the van to-day.
    Aye one with her, &c.

Inheritors of glory,
  O countrymen! we swear
To guard the flag whose story
  Shall onward victory bear.
Where'er through earth's far regions
  Its triple crosses fly,
For God, for home, our legions
  Shall win, or fighting die!
    Aye one with her, &c.



_RIVER RHYMES_

1. We have poled our staunch canoe
   Many a boiling torrent through;
   Paddling where the eddies drew,
   Athwart the roaring flood we flew.

_Chorus--_
      Dip your paddles! make them leap,
      Where the clear cold waters sweep.
      Dip your paddles! steady keep,
      Where breaks the rapid down the steep.

2. Where the wind, like censer, flings
   Smoke-spray wider as it swings,
   Hark! the aisle of rainbow rings
   To falls that hymn the King of kings.

3. Lifting there our vessel tight,
   Climbed we bank and rocky height,
   Bore her through thick woods, where light
   Fell dappling those green haunts of Night.

4. O'er the rush of billows hurled,
   Where they tossed and leaped and curled,
   Past each wave-worn boulder whirled,
   How fast we sailed, no sail unfurled!

5. Laughs from parted lips and teeth
   Hailed the quiet reach beneath,
   Damascened in ferny sheath,
   And girt with pine and maple wreath.

6. Oh, the lovely river there
   Made all Nature yet more fair;
   Wooded hills and azure air
   Kissed, quivering, in the stream they share.

7. Plunged the salmon, waging feud
   'Gainst the jewelled insect-brood;
   From aerial solitude
   An eagle's shadow crossed the wood.

8. Flapped the heron, and the grey
   Halcyon talked from cedar's spray,
   Drummed the partridge far away;--
   Ah! could we choose to live as they!



_LEGEND OF THE CANADIAN ROBIN_

Is it Man alone who merits
  Immortality or death?
Each created thing inherits
  Equal air and common breath.

Souls pass onward: some are ranging
  Happy hunting-grounds, and some
Are as joyous, though in changing
  Form be altered, language dumb.

Beauteous all, if fur or feather,
  Strength or gift of song be theirs;
He who planted all together
  Equally their fate prepares.

Like to Time, that dies not, living
  Through the change the seasons bring,
So men, dying, are but giving
  Life to some fleet foot or wing.

Bird and beast the Savage cherished,
  But the Robins loved he best;
O'er the grave where he has perished
  They shall thrive and build their nest.

Hunted by the white invader,
  Vanish ancient races all;
Yet no ruthless foe or trader
  Silences the songster's call.

For the white man too rejoices,
  Welcoming Spring's herald bird,
When the ice breaks, and the voices
  From the rushing streams are heard.

Where the Indian's head-dress fluttered,
  Pale the settler would recoil,
And his deepest curse was uttered
  On the Red Son of the soil.

Later knew he not, when often
  Gladness with the Robin came,
How a spirit-change could soften
  Hate to dear affection's flame:

Knew not, as he heard, delighted,
  Mellow notes in woodlands die,
How his heart had leaped, affrighted
  At that voice in battle-cry.

For a youthful Savage, keeping
  Long his cruel fast, had prayed,
All his soul in yearning steeping,
  Not for glory, chase, or maid;

But to sing in joy, and wander,
  Following the summer hours,
Drinking where the streams meander,
  Feasting with the leaves and flowers.

Once his people saw him painting
  Red his sides and red his breast,
Said: "His soul for fight is fainting,
  War-paint suits the hero best;"

Went, when passed the night, loud calling,
  Found him not, but where he lay
Saw a Robin, whose enthralling
  Carol seemed to them to say;

"I have left you! I am going
  Far from fast and winter pain;
When the laughing water's flowing
  Hither I will come again!"

Thus his ebon locks still wearing,
  With the war-paint on his breast,
Still he comes, our summer sharing,
  And the lands he once possessed.

Finding in the white man's regions
  Foemen none, but friends whose heart
Loves the Robins' happy legions,
  Mourns when, silent, they depart.



_WERE THESE THE FIRST DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA?_

MILICETE LEGEND OF THE OUANGONDE, OR RIVER ST. JOHN.

Though the ebbing ocean listens
  To Ugonde's throbbing roar,
Calm the conquering flood-tide glistens
  Where the river raved before. [1]

[1] The Bay of Fundy tide rises to such a height that it flows up
the St. John River channel to some distance, silencing the roar
of the Calls, which pour over a great ledge of rock left by the
ebbing sea. Taken very literally from a tale in the "Amaranth
Magazine," 1841.

So the sea-brought strangers, stronger
  Than their Indian foes of old,
Conquered, till were heard no longer
  War-songs through the forests rolled.

Yet the land's wild stream, begotten
  Where its Red Sons fought and died,
With traditions unforgotten
  Strives to stem Oblivion's tide;
Tells the mighty, who, like ocean,
  Whelm the native stream, how they
First in far dim days' commotion,
  Wrestling, fought for empire's sway.

Hear the sad cascade, ere ever
  Sinks in rising tides its moan,
True may be the tale, though never
  By the victor ocean known.

Now the chant rings softly, finding
  Freedom as the sea retires;
Loudly now, through spray-tears blinding
  Throb and thunder silver lyres;

Silenced when the strong sea-water
  To its great' heart, limitless,
Rising, takes the valley's daughter,
  Soothes the song of her distress.


UGONDE'S TALE.

For a while the salt brine leaves me
  O'er my terraced rocks to fall,
And my broad swift-gliding waters
  Olden memories recall.

Ere the tallest pines were seedlings
  With my life-stream these were blent;
As a father's words, like arrows
  Straight to children's hearts are sent,

So my currents speeding downwards,
  Ever passing, sing the same
Story of the days remembered,
  When the stranger people came.
Men of mighty limbs and voices,
  Bearing shining shields and knives,
Painted gleamed their hair like evening,
  When the sun in ocean dives.

Blue their eyes and tall their stature,
  Huge as Indian shadows seen
When the sun through mists of morning
  Casts them o'er a clear lake's sheen.

From before the great Pale-faces
  Fled the tribes to woods and caves,
Watching thence their fearful councils,
  Where they talked beside the waves.

For they loved the shores, and fashioned
  Houses from its stones, and there
Fished and rested, danced at night-time
  By their fire and torches' glare.

Sang loud songs before the pine-logs
  As they crackled in the flame,
Raised and drank from bone-cups, shouting
  Fiercely some strange spirit's name.

Turning to the morning's pathway,
  Cried they thus to gods, and none
Dared to fight the bearded giants,
  Children of the fire and sun.

From their bodies fell our flint-darts,
  Yet their arrows flew, like rays
Flashing from the rocks where polished
  By the ice in winter days.

Then the Indians prayed the spirits
  Haunting river, bank, and hill,
To let hatred, like marsh vapour,
  Rise among their foes and kill.

And they seemed to heed, for anger
  Often maddened all the band,
Fighting for some stones that glittered
  Yellow on Ugonde's sand.

Seeing axe and spear-head crimson,
  Hope illumined doubt and dread,
And our land's despairing children
  Called upon the mighty dead.

All the Northern night-air shaking,
  Rose the ancients' bright array,
Burning lines of battle breaking
  Darkness into lurid day.

But the stranger hearts were hardened,
  Fearless slept they; then at last
Our Great Spirit heard, and answered
  From his home in heaven vast.

For his waving locks were tempests,
  And the thunder-cloud his frown;
Where he trod the earthquake followed,
  And the forests bowed them down.

As his whirlwind struck the mountains,
  Rent and lifted, swayed the ground;
Winged knives of crooked lightning
  Gleamed from skies and gulfs profound.

Floods, from wonted channels driven,
  Roared at falling hillside's shock;
What was land became the torrent,
  What was lake became the rock.

Now the river and the ocean,
  Whispering, say: "Our floods alone
See white skeletons slow-moving
  Near the olden walls of stone."

Moving slow in stream and sea-tide,
  There the stranger warriors sleep,
And their shades still cry in anguish
  Where the foaming waters leap.



_THE GUIDE OF THE MOHAWKS_.

For strife against the ocean tribe
  The Mohawks' war array
Comes floating down, where broad St. John
  Reflects the dawning day.

A camp is seen, and victims fall,
  And none are left to flee;
A maid alone is spared, compelled
  A traitress guide to be.
The swift canoes together keep,
  And o'er their gliding prows
The silent girl points down the stream,
  Nor halt nor rest allows.

"Speak! are we near your fires? How dark
  Night o'er these waters lies!"
Still pointing down the rushing stream,
  The maiden naught replies.

The banks fly past, the water seethes;
  The Mohawks shout, "To shore!
Where is the girl?" Her cry ascends
  From out the river's roar.

The foaming rapids rise and flash
  A moment o'er her head,
And smiling as she sinks, she knows
  Her foemen's course is sped;

A moment hears she shriek on shriek
  From hearts that death appals,
As, seized by whirling gulfs, the crews
  Are drawn into the falls!



_THE STRONG HUNTER._

There's a warrior hunting o'er prairie and hill,
Who in sunshine or starlight is eager to kill,
Who ne'er sleeps by his fire on the wild river's shore,
Where the green cedars shake to the white rapids' roar.

Ever tireless and noiseless, he knows not repose,
Be the land filled with summer, or lifeless with snows;
But his strength gives him few he can count as his friends,
Man and beast fly before him wherever he wends,

For he chases alike every form that has breath,
And his darts must strike all,--for that hunter is Death!!
Lo! a skeleton armed, and his scalp-lock yet streams;
From this vision of fear of the Iroquois' dreams!



_MON-DAW-MIN_;

OR, THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN-CORN.

Cherry bloom and green buds bursting
  Fleck the azure skies;
In the spring wood, hungering, thirsting,
  Faint an Indian lies.

To behold his guardian spirit
  Fasts the dusky youth;
Prays that thus he may inherit
  Warrior strength and truth.

Weak he grows, the war-path gory
  Seems a far delight;
Now he scans the flowers, whose glory
  Is not won by fight.

"Hunger kills me; see my arrow
  Bloodless lies: I ask,
If life's doom be grave-pit narrow,
  Deathless make its task.

"For man's welfare guide my being,
  So I shall not die
Like the flow'rets, fading, fleeing,
  When the snow is nigh.

"Medicine from the plants we borrow,
  Salves from many a leaf;
May they not kill hunger's sorrow,
  Give with food relief?"

Suddenly a spirit shining
  From the sky came down,
Green his mantle, floating, twining,
  Gold his feather crown.

"I have heard thy thought unspoken;
  Famous thou shall be;
Though no scalp shall be the token,
  Men shall speak of thee.

"Bravely borne, men's heaviest burden
  Ever lighter lies;
Wrestling with me, win the guerdon;
  Gain thy wish, arise!"

Now he rises, and, prevailing,
  Hears the angel say:
"Strong in weakness, never failing,
  Strive yet one more day.

"Now again I come, and find thee
  Yet with courage high,
So that, though my arms can bind thee,
  Victor thou, not I.

"Hark! to-morrow, conquering, slay me,
  Blest shall be thy toil:
After wrestling, strip me, lay me
  Sleeping in the soil.

"Visit oft the place; above me
  Root out weeds and grass;
Fast no more; obeying, love me;
  Watch what comes to pass."

Waiting through the long day dreary,
  Still he hungers on;
Once more wrestling, weak and weary,
  Still the fight is won.

Stripped of robes and golden feather,
  Buried lies the guest:
Summer's wonder-working weather
  Warms his place of rest.

Ever his commands fulfilling,
  Mourns his victor friend,
Fearing, with a heart unwilling,
  To have known the end.

No! upon the dark mould fallow
  Shine bright blades of green;
Rising, spreading, plumes of yellow
  O'er their sheaves are seen.

Higher than a mortal's stature
  Soars the corn in pride;
Seeing it, he knows that Nature
  There stands deified.

"'Tis my friend," he cries, "the guerdon
  Fast and prayer have won;
Want is past, and hunger's burden
  Soon shall torture none."



_THE ISLES OF HURON_

Bright are the countless isles which crest
With waving woods wide Huron's breast,--
  Her countless isles, that love too well
    The crystal waters whence they rise,
  Far from her azure depths to swell,
    Or wanton with the wooing skies;

Nor, jealous, soar to keep the Day
From laughing in each rippling bay,
  But floating on the flood they love,
    Soft whispering, kiss her breast, and seek
  No passions of the air above,
    No fires that burn the thunder-peak.

Algoma o'er Ontario throws
Fair forest heights and mountain snows;
  Strong Erie shakes the orchard plain
    At great Niagara's defiles,
  And river-gods o'er Lawrence reign,
    But Love is king in Huron's isles.



_THE MYSTIC ISLE OF THE "LAND OF THE NORTH WIND."_

(KEEWATIN.)

A land untamed, whose myriad isles
Are set in branching lakes that vein
Illimitable silent woods,
Voiceful in Fall, when their defiles,
Rich with the birch's golden rain,
See winging past the wildfowl broods.

Blue channels seem its dented rocks,
So steeply smoothed, but crusted o'er
With rounded mosses, green and grey,
That oft a Southern coral mocks
Upon this Northern fir-clad shore,
'Neath tufted copse on cape and bay.
Here sunshine from serener skies
Than Europe's ocean-islands know
Ripens the berry for the bear,
And pierces where the beaver plies
His water-forestry, or slow
The moose seeks out a breezy lair.

The blaze scarce spangles bush or ferns,
But lights the white pine's velvet fringe
And its dark Norway sister's boughs;
At eve between their shadows burns
The lake, where shafts of crimson tinge
The savage war-flotilla's prows.

Far circling round, these seem to shun
An isle more fair than all beside,
As if some lurking foe were there,
Although upon its heights the sun
Shines glorious, and its forest pride
Is fanned by summer's joyous air.

For 'mid these isles is one of fear,
And none may ever breathe its name.
There the Great Spirit loves to be;
Its haunted groves and waters clear
Are homes of thunder and of flame;
All pass it silently and flee,

Save they who potent magic learn,
Who lonely in that dreaded fane
Resist nine days the awful powers:
And, fasting, each through pain may earn
The knowledge daring mortals gain,
If life survive those secret hours!



_WESTWARD HO!_

Away to the west! Westward ho! Westward ho!
Where over the prairies the summer winds blow!

Why known to so few were its rivers and plains,
Where rustle so tall in their ripeness the grains?
The bison and Red-men alone cared to roam
O'er realms that to millions must soon give a home;
The vast fertile levels Old Time loved to reap
The haymaker's song hath awakened from sleep.

Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
Why waited we fearing to plant and to sow?

Not ours was the waiting! By God was ordained
The hour when the ocean's grey steeds were up-reined,
And green marshes rose, and the bittern's abode
Became the Lone Land where the wild hunter strode,
And soils with grass harvests grew rich, and the clime
For us was prepared in the fulness of Time!

Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
For us 'twas prepared long ago, long ago!
There came from the Old World at last o'er the sea,
The bravest and best to this land of the free;
And, leal to their flag, won the fruits of the earth
By might that has given new nations a birth,
But found in our North-land a bride to be known
More worthy than all of the love of the throne.
Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
God's hand is our guide; 'tis His will that we go!

To lands yet more happy than Europe's, for here
We mould the young nation for Freedom to rear.
Full strongly we build, and have nought to pull down,
For, true to ourselves, we are true to the Crown;
The will of the people its honour shows forth,
As pole-star, whose radiance points steadfastly north.

Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
Where rooted in Freedom shall Liberty grow!

Right good is the loam that for five score of days
Its rolling lands show, or its plains' scented ways:
Nor used is the pick, if the earth has concealed
The waters it keeps for the house and the field;
The spade finds enough, until burst on the sight
Our Rocky Sierras' sweet rivers of light.

Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
From mountains and lakes there the great rivers flow!

If told of Brazil or great Mexico's gold,
Of Cotton States' warmth and of Canada's cold,
Go say how we prize, like the ore of the mine,
The snows sapphire-shadowed in winter's sunshine;
--Our gayest of seasons! which guards the good soil
For races who won it through faith and through toil.

Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
Bright sparkles its winter, and light is its snow!

There gaily, in measureless meadows, all day
The sun and the breeze with the grass are at play,
In billows that never can break as they pass,
But toss the gold foam of the flower-laden grass,
The bright yellow disks of the asters upcast
On waves that in blossoms flow silently past.

Away to the West! Westward-ho! Westward ho!
Where over the prairies the summer winds blow.

The West for you, boys! where our God has made room
For field and for city, for plough and for loom.
The West for you, girls! for our Canada deems
Love's home better luck than a gold-seeker's dreams.
Away! and your children shall bless you, for they
Shall rule o'er a land fairer far than Cathay.

Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
Thou God of their fathers, Thy blessing bestow!


_THE SONG OF THE SIX SISTERS._

[Manitoba, Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Alberta,
and British Columbia.]

At a feast in the east of our central plains,
Girt with the sheaths of the wheaten grains,
Manitoba lay where the sunflowers blow,
And sang to the chime of the Red River's flow:
"I am child of the spirit whom all men own,
My prairie no longer is green and lone,
For the hosts of the settler have ringed me round,
And his bride am I with the harvest crowned."

On her steed at speed o'er her burning grass
We saw Assiniboia pass:
"The bison and antelope still are mine,
And the Indian wars on my boundary-line;
Where his knife is dyed I love to ride
By the cactus blooms or the marshes wide,
While the quivering columns of thunder fire
Give light to the darkened land's desire."

"To the North look ye forth," cried the voice of one,
Who dwells where the great twin rivers run;--
"Or farther yet," Athabaska cried,
"Where mightier waters the hills divide:
'Peace' is their name, and the musk ox there
Still feeds alone on the meadows fair."
"Nay, stay," said the first; "the white man's word
Hath called me the kindest to horse and herd."

From on high where the sky and the snow-born rill
Each morn and eve to the rose-tints thrill,
Sang the fairy Sprite of the Fountain Land:
"A daughter of her, whose sceptred hand
With the flag of the woven crosses three
Hath rule o'er the ocean, hath christened me,
And my waves their homage repeat again,
And that standard greet in the loyal main."

And their lays in her praise then sang the four:
"Alberta has all we can boast and more:
The scented breath of the plains is hers,
The odours sweet of the sage and firs;
There the coal breaks forth on her rolling sod,
And the winters flee at the winds of God.
Columbia, come! for we want but thee;
Now tell of thyself and thy silent sea!"

  "Clad with the silver snow, a pine
  Guarded the grot of a golden mine,
And dark was the shade which the mist-wreaths cast
Though brightly they shone on the mountain vast.
    Stars and sun o'er that cavern swept,
    Where on the glittering sand I slept;
But none could behold me, or know where was stored
More treasure than monarch e'er won with the sword.
    Floods in fathomless torrents fall
    Through the awful rifts of the Alpine wall,
Where I passed in the night over forest and glen,
O'er the ships on the sea and the cities of men--
    Swifter than morn! His shafts of love
    Behind me caught the peaks above,
But touched not my wings: I had gone e'er he came
Where the vine-maple fringed the deep forest with flame.
    Strewn o'er the sombre walls of green
    In saffron or in crimson sheen,
How lovely those gardens of autumn, where rolled
In smoke and in fire the red lava of old!
    Soon I reached my sea-girt home
    Sheltered from the breakers' foam.
Seek not for mine isle, for a thousand and more
Lie asleep in the calm near the mountainous shore.
    Oft I roam in moon ray clear
    With the puma and the deer;
From the boughs of Madrona that droop o'er a bay
I watch the fish dart from the beams of the day.
    Mine are tranquil gulfs, nor give
    Sign to lovers where I live;
But the sea-rock betrays where my netting is hung,
When the meshes of light o'er its mosses are flung!"
    She ceased, and then in chorus strong
    The blended voices floated long:--

    "No sirens we, of shore or wave,
    To sing of love and tempt the brave:
    We fled their path, and freedom found
    Where blue horizons stretched around,
    And lilies in the grasses made
    A double sunshine on each blade.
    No wooers we, but, wooed by them,
    We yield our maiden diadem,
    And welcome now, no longer mute,
    Tried hearts so true and resolute!"



_THE PRAIRIE ROSES._

The Noon-Sun prayed a prairie rose
  To blanch for him her blossom's hue,
But to the Plain all love she owes;
  Beneath that mother's grass she grew.

And sheltered by her verdant blades,
  Their tints of green she made her own;
But still the Sun sought out her shades
  And said, "Be my white bride alone!"

Then, sorrowing for his grievous pain,
  Her sister loved the amorous god,
And blushed, ashamed, as o'er the plain
  His parting beams illumed the sod.

So one sweet rose yet wears the green,
  And one in sunset's crimson glows;
Still one untouched by love is seen,
  And one in conscious beauty blows.



_CREE FAIRIES_.

"Did earth ever see
On thy prairie's line
Tribes older than thine,
Old Chief of the Cree?"

"Before us we know
Of none who lived here;
Our shafts bade them go.

"But others have share
Of lake and of land,
A swift-footed band
No arrow can scare.

"Their coming has been
When flowers are gay;
On islet and bay
Their footprints are seen.

"There dance little feet
Light grasses they break;
Beneath the blue lake
Must be their retreat.

"We listen, and none
Hears ever a sound;
But where, lily-crowned,
Floats the isle in the sun,

"Three children we see
Like sunbeams at play.
And, voiceless as they,
Dogs bounding in glee.

"Of old they were there!
Ever young, who are these
Whom Death cannot seize?
What Spirits of air?"



_THE "QU'APPELLE" VALLEY._

Morning, lighting all the prairies,
  Once of old came, bright as now,
To the twin cliffs, sloping wooded
  From the vast plain's even brow:
When the sunken valley's levels
  With the winding willowed stream,
Cried, "Depart, night's mists and shadows;
  Open-flowered, we love to dream!"
Then in his canoe a stranger
  Passing onward heard a cry;
Thought it called his name and answered,
  But the voice would not reply;
Waited listening, while the glory
  Rose to search each steep ravine,
Till the shadowed terraced ridges
  Like the level vale were green.

Strange as when on Space the voices
  Of the stars' hosannahs fell,
To this wilderness of beauty
  Seemed his call "Qu'Appelle? Qu'Appelle?"
For a day he tarried, hearkening,
  Wondering, as he went his way,
Whose the voice that gladly called him
  With the merry tones of day?

Was it God, who gave dumb Nature
  Voice and words to shout to one
Who, a pioneer, came, sunlike,
  Down the pathways of the sun?
Harbinger of thronging thousands,
  Bringing plain, and vale, and wood,
Things the best and last created,
  Human hearts and brotherhood!

Long the doubt and eager question
  Yet that valley's name shall tell,
For its farmers' laughing children
  Gravely call it "The Qu'Appelle!"



_THE BLACKFEET_

I.

Where the snow-world of the mountains
  Fronts the sea-like world of sward,
And encamped along the prairies
  Tower the white peaks heavenward;
Where they stand by dawn rose-coloured
  Or dim-silvered by the stars,
And behind their shadowed portals
  Evening draws her lurid bars,
Lies a country whose sweet grasses
  Richly clothe the rolling plain;
All its swelling upland pastures
  Speak of Plenty's happy reign;
There the bison herds in autumn
  Roamed wide sunlit solitudes,
Seamed with many an azure river
  Bright in burnished poplar woods.


II.

Night-dews pearled the painted hide-tents,
  "Moyas" named, that on the mead
Sheltered dark-eyed women wearing
  Braided hair and woven bead.
Never man had seen their lodges,
  Never warrior crossed the slopes
Where they rode, and where they hunted
  Imu bulls and antelopes.
Masterless, how swift their riding!
  While the wild steeds onward flew,
From round breasts and arms unburdened
  Freedom's winds their tresses blew.
Only when the purple shadows
  Slowly veiled the darkening plain
Would they sorrow that the Sun-god
  Dearer loved his Alp's domain.


III.

Southward, nearer to the gorges
  Whence the sudden warm winds blow,
Shaking all the pine's huge branches,
  Melting all the fallen snow,
Dwelt the Seksika, the Blackfeet;
  They whose ancestor, endued,
With the dark salve's magic fleetness,
  First on foot the deer pursued.
Gallantly the Braves bore torture
  While their Sun-dance fasts were held,
While the drums beat, and the virgins
  Saw the pains by manhood quelled.
As each writhing form triumphant
  Called on the Great Spirit's might,
On his son, whose voice in thunder
  Summons airy hosts to fight.


IV.

"Star-Child," praised as bearing all things,
  Praised as Brave who never feared,
Young, but famed above his elders,
  Chief to man and maid endeared,
Went with comrades, quiver-harnessed,
  O'er the hills, and face to face,
Where the bright leaves trembled round them,
  Found the fearless huntress race
Was it peace or was it warfare?
  Starting back, their bows they drew,
But a mystic power compelled them,
  And no word, no arrow flew.
Nearer to each other drawing,
  Strength and beauty beckoned "Peace,"
Each the other envious eyeing,
  Jealous lest their hunt should cease!


V.

"They are strong; could not they aid us?"
  Thought the maiden band amazed;
"Conquered, these could well obey us!"
  Dreamed the warriors as they gazed.
Falsely answered cunning "Star-Child,"
  Smiling as they slowly met,
While the women's frequent questions
  Were to laughter's music set,
"Who is chief among you, tell us?"
  "He is far! Is she your queen
With the shells and deer-teeth broidered,
  Decked with sheen of gold between?"
"Yea; she slays the bear, the grizzly:
  Light her empire on us lies;
With the love she rules her courser
  Guides and guards us 'Laughing Eyes'!"


VI.

Vaunted then the men their "Star-Child:"
  "Peerless soldier, keen-eyed king!
From the girl he weds shall heroes
  Worthy war-god's lineage spring.
Know ye not how old enchantment
  Saw his storm-born sire appear,
Armed, upon a peak dark-lifted
  O'er the snows and glaciers drear?
His the darts divine, whose breaking
  Thrice hath some disaster sent,
Shafts that killed and then returning,
  Kept his armoury unspent."
"Give us of these arrows. Bring him!"
  Cried the maidens. "Nay," they said;
"Come with us and share our hunting
  Ere the autumn leaves are shed."


VII.

Answered they: "In painted lodges
  Berries we have dried and meat;
Come again! e'er comes the winter,
  Let us hear your horses' feet."
And they sprang into their saddles,
  Swept, white-splashing, through a stream
Red and saffron hued, the pageant
  Crossed the blue translucent gleam.
Then unwilling, as they vanished,
  "Star-Child" slow to camp returned;
Told the council of the Blackfeet
  All the marvels he had learned;
Dressed him in his chief's apparel,
  Rode to where, within the glen,
Lay the trail that led him onward
  To the town, unknown of men.


VIII.

From each Moya thronged the dwellers:
  "Hath the chief the arrows sent?"
"I am Chief; behold me; trust me.
  Lead me to your ruler's tent."
"He hath not the shafts enchanted;
  Thus unarmed came never chief!"
Bent a thousand bows around him:
  "Back or die, impostor, thief!"
Angry, yet afraid to anger,
  Lest he lose those "Laughing-Eyes,"
He, obeying, vowed to conquer;
  Scorning to make vain replies,
Went; and weary seemed the journey!
  All along the yellow plain
Red as rose-leaves in the grasses
  Flushed his dusky cheeks with pain.


IX.

Grave, in silent circles seated
  'Neath their Moya's smoke-tanned cone,
Round the fire his chieftains heard him,
  Holding each a pipe's red stone.
Pausing long, they gave their counsel,
  Different from their wont; for here
All the young men spoke for kindness,
  All the old men were severe.
But the Braves rode forth at morning,
  Half the magic darts they bore;
Pledge so precious of their friendship
  None had thought to give before!
To the huntress nation welcome,
  Waking song in every tent,
Where the hours were passed in feasting
  And the days to love were lent!


X.

Thus the maidens were the victors,
  For to them the warriors came:
"Laughing-Eyes" but loved the "Star-Child"
  When his shafts her own became.
Ah! but where is man or woman
  Who may boast of triumph long?
Nought abides, and mighty nations
  Cannot ever more be strong.
So each huntress found a master,
  Yielding to her heart's new birth,
And no more along the prairie
  Beat her steed the sounding earth.
Yearly yet the Blackfeet women
  Meet and dance and sing the day
When through love they won, and, winning,
  Freedom passed with love away!



_SAN GABRIEL, ON THE PACIFIC COAST._

Grey-cowled monk, whose faith so earnest
  Guides these Indians' childlike hearts,
As their hands to toil thou turnest,
  Teaching them the Builder's arts,
Speak thy thought! as now they gather
  Round the white walls on the plain,
Rearing them for God the Father,
  And the glory of New Spain.

"Thou, St. Gabriel, knowest only
  Why thy holy bells I raise,
To no turret proud and lonely,
  There to sound the hours of praise;--
Why I keep them close beside me,
  Framed within the church's walls,
Here where heathen lands shall hide me
  Until death to judgment calls."

Then St Gabriel in high heaven
  Told the saints this mortal's lot,
As the Angelus at even
  Rose to day that dieth not;
And from out the nightly wonder
  Of the darkened world would float,
Mingling with the near sea's thunder,
  Yonder belfry's golden note.

"Two there were, whose loves were blighted
  By the Spanish pride abhorred,
And their vows and wealth they plighted
  To the Missions of the Lord.
For his church these bells she gave him,
  When within their glowing mould,
She had cast what were her treasures,
  --All her ornaments of gold.

"So do these, that to his seeming
  Were but good as touched by her,
Ring to seek for love redeeming
  All who sorrow, all who err.
Yes, though human love be ever
  Heard upon the throbbing air,
This shall make his life's endeavour
  Stronger through a woman's prayer.

"God is not a Lord requiring
  Sacrifice of memories dear,
And their love in life untiring
  To His life hath brought then near.
Thus his wish to have beside him
  That which seems her voice, is good:
Lovingly the Lord hath tried him,
  And his heart hath understood."



_NIAGARA_

A ceaseless, awful, falling sea, whose sound
  Shakes earth and air, and whose resistless stroke
  Shoots high the volleying foam like cannon smoke!
How dread and beautiful the floods, when, crowned
By moonbeams on their rushing ridge, they bound
  Into the darkness and the veiling spray;
  Or, jewel-hued and rainbow-dyed, when day
Lights the pale torture of the gulf profound!
So poured the avenging streams upon the world
  When swung the ark upon the deluge wave,
And, o'er each precipice in grandeur hurled,
  The endless torrents gave mankind a grave.
God's voice is mighty, on the water loud,
Here, as of old, in thunder, glory, cloud!



_ON CHIEF MOUNTAIN_

A GREAT ROCK ON THE AMERICAN NORTH-WEST FRONTIER.

Among white peaks a rock, hewn altar-wise,
  Marks the long frontier of our mighty lands.
  Apart its dark tremendous sculpture stands,
Too steep for snow, and square against the skies.
In other shape its buttressed masses rise
  When seen from north or south; but eastward set,
  God carved it where two sovereignties are met,
An altar to His peace, before men's eyes.
Of old there Indian mystics, fasting, prayed;
  And from its base to distant shores the streams
Take sands of gold, to be at last inlaid
  Where ocean's floor in shadowed splendour gleams.
So in our nations' sundered lives be blent
Love's golden memories from one proud descent!



_CUBA_

Spake one upon the vessel's prow, before
  The sinking sun had kissed the glittering seas:
  "'Twas here Columbus with his Genoese
Steered his frail barks toward the unknown store,
With hope unfaltering, though all hope seemed o'er;
  Calm 'mid the mutineers the prophet mind
  Saw the New World to which their eyes were blind,
Heard on its continents the breakers' roar,
Told of the golden promise of the main,
  While cursed his crew, and called a madman's dream
The land his ashes only hold for Spain!
  It rose on dim horizon with the gleam
Of morn, proclaiming to the kneeling throng
All treasures theirs, because one heart was strong."



_ON THE NEW PROVINCE "ALBERTA."_

[This Province was called after the Princess, one of whose Christian
names is Alberta.]

In token of the love which thou hast shown
  For this wide land of freedom, I have named
  A province vast, and for its beauty famed,
By thy dear name to be hereafter known.
Alberta shall it be! Her fountains thrown
  From alps unto three oceans, to all men
  Shall vaunt her loveliness e'en now; and when,
Each little hamlet to a city grown,
And numberless as blades of prairie grass,
  Or the thick leaves in distant forest bower,
Great peoples hear the giant currents pass,
  Still shall the waters, bringing wealth and power,
Speak the loved name,--the land of silver springs--
Worthy the daughter of our English kings.






VERSES

CHIEFLY FROM HIGHLAND STORIES.



_GAELIC LEGENDS_

Oft the savage Tale in telling
  Less of Love than Wrath and Hate,
Hath within its fierceness dwelling
  Some pure note compassionate.

Mark, if rude their nature, stronger,
  Manlier are the minds that keep
Thought on rightful vengeance longer
  Than on those who can but weep.

Better sing the horrid battle
  Than its cause of crime and wrong;
Sing great life-deeds! the death-rattle
  Is too common for a song.

Lays where man in fight rejoices
  Sang our Sires, from Sire to Son;
Heard and loved the hero voices,
  "Dare, and more than life is won!"



_COLHORN._

Lo, a castle, tall, lake-mirrored,
  Ringed around by mountain forms,
Roofless, ruined, still defying
  Summer's rains and winter's storms.

Every shattered lifeless window,
  Every stone in every wall,
Keep and gable, broken stairway,
  Woman's faithful love recall.
Colin, called "the Swarthy," famous
  In the annals of Lochow,
When a child, was gently fostered
  Near where Orchy's waters flow.

The Black Knight, his sire, could value
  Vassal's love and hardy fare;
To a gudewife gave him, saying,
  "Train him with the sons you bear."

Strong he grew, and brave, till armies
  Praised in him a man of men.
Came a peace--then love;--a lady
  Ruled with him the Orchy's glen.

But afar from over Ocean
  Rose a cry for Christian aid:
Blessed of Pope, 'neath holy banners
  Sailed he for the great crusade.

Leaving with his weeping lady
  Half their marriage ring, whereon
Written stood his name, and taking
  Half where hers, engraven, shone.

"If no tidings reach thee, darling,
  Blame my death." But she through tears
Answered: "I'll believe thee living
  Though I hear not seven years."

Lonely lived the lady, lonely:
  Riches grew, and brought her all
Save the loving words whose echo
  Seemed to linger in his hall.

Voiceless passed the years; and Rumour
  Falsely slew him, whose steel mail
Flashed o'er white walls, azure sea girt,
  Watched, and feared by Moslem sail.

Rhodes' fair island saw his valour;
  'Mid her gardens he had bled;
Glowing as her sun, his love-words
  Homeward to his lady sped.

Ah, they reached her not, to banish
  Days of care, and nights of woe;
Their warm sunshine never parted
  Clouds that darkened o'er Lochow,

Weary is her lot whose favour
  For her wealth is held a prize;
Oft she finds no truthful homage,
  Sees no love in pleading eyes.

Man gains strength from gold, but woman
  Worse than dross her wealth may call;
Avarice is her haunting suitor,
  Giving naught and seeking all.

Messages from the Crusader
  Fell into a Baron's hands;
Who, with subtle treason working,
  Coveted dark Colin's lands:

Spread the base and cruel rumours,
  Preyed upon the aching heart,
Asked her year by year in marriage,
  Falsely played the lover's part.

And the heartless seasons vanished,
  Other twain were nearly sped;
Then at last his suit seemed answered,
  Silently she bent her head.

Gaily, loudly, laughing o'er her,
  Named the Baron hour and day.
But she said: "No, for this wedding
  First I'll build a castle gay.

"When its halls are built, we'll tarry
  Where our guests can praise our cheer;
When the feast-smoke from its chimneys
  Rises, then the day is near."

So the building rose, and slowly
  Walls and stairway, keep and tower
Stone by stone completed, sadly
  Heralded the wedding hour.

Shall it come, and never mercy
  Shown of God avert the doom?
Shall the longing for the absent
  Turn to feasting o'er his tomb?

Yes. The Castle's new possessor
  Soon shall follow thronging guests:
As the Lake reflects the turrets
  Men shall second his behests.

Mournful, where they laughed so gladly,
  A poor beggar, haggard, grey,
Trod with pain the stony roadside,
  Often halting by the way.

He too reached the Castle's portal,
  Stood within its archway grim,
Loitering in the path of others;
  Who would step aside for him?

Pushed a henchman rudely, saying,
  "Get you hence," but still he stood:
Then they gave him bread and water,
  "Loiter not, you have your food."

Twice came others, in his wallet
  Thrusting bread and meat, and said:
"Now away, why stand you troubling,
  Here you cannot make your bed."

"Drink from her own hands imploring,
  Tell your Lady here I wait!"
Wondering went she where the beggar
  Shadowed stood within the gate.

Now she pours the crystal water,
  Quickly he the cup returns;
Oh! what golden circlet broken
  Sees she there that gleams and burns?

Eagerly she grasped the token,
  Turning to the light away;
Came again, and crying "Colin!"
  On the beggar's breast she lay.

Spoke he sadly: "Hast thou truly
  Still the heart I loved? I know--
They have told me--that thou takest
  To thy love my deadly foe.

"The gudewife, my foster mother,
  Unto whom I made me known
When I reached the Orchy, told me
  How the rumour base had grown:

"I was dead, or cared not for thee
  Who received no word of mine;
'Twas thy lover's doing, woman,
  Hungering for my wealth and thine!

"'Take,' the gudewife said, 'a beggar's
  Old attire; and see the mist
Where the wedding smoke is ordered
  By the lips which thou hast kissed.'

"Thou hast put our ring together
  Can it be as one again?"
Then she raised her face, and proudly
  Spoke unto her serving-men:

"See you where the Baron's people
  Come with him along the road?
Go and tell them quickly, 'Colin
  Rules again his own abode.'"

Fled the traitor, pulses beating,
  Not with love, but craven fear;
And the beggar found the treasure
  That to noble hearts is dear.

Found the love no time had altered,
  Honoured lived, and honoured died;
And in Rhodes and in Glenorchy
  Honoured shall his name abide.



_LOCH BUY_

PART I.

Dark, with shrouds of mist surrounded.
  Rise the mountains from the shore,
Where the galleys of the Islesmen
  Stand updrawn, their voyage o'er.

Horns this morn are hoarsely sounding
  From Loch Buy's ancient wall,
While for chase the guests and vassals
  Gather in the court and hall.

Hounds, whose voices could give warning
  From far moors of stags at bay,
Quiver in each iron muscle,
  Howl, impatient of delay.

Henchmen, waiting for the signal,
  At their chiefs imperious word
Start, to drive from hill and corrie
  To the pass the watchful herd.

Closed were paths as with a netting,
  Vain high courage, speed, or scent;
Every mesh, a man in ambush
  Ready with a crossbow bent.

"Eachan, guard that glade and copsewood,
  At your peril let none by!"
Cries the chief, while in the heather
  Silently the huntsmen lie.

Shouting by the green morasses
  Where the fairies dance at night,
Yelling 'mid the oak and birches
  Come the beaters into sight.

And before them, rushing wildly
  Speeds the driven herd of deer,
Whose wide antlers toss like branches
  In the winter of the year.

Useless was the vassal's effort
  To arrest the living flow;
And it passed by Eachan's passage
  Spite of hound, and shout, and blow.

"Worse than woman! useless caitiff!
  Why allowed you them to pass?
Back, no answer! Hark, men, hither!
  Take his staff and bind him fast"

Hearing was with them obeying,
  And the hunter's strong limbs lie
Bound with thongs from tawny oxen,
  'Neath the chieftain's cruel eye.

"More than twoscore stags have passed him,
  Mark the number on his flesh
With red stripes of this good ashwood,
  Mend me thus this broken mesh!"

Ah, Loch Buy! faint and sullen
  Beats the heart, once leal and free,
That had yielded life exulting
  If it bled for thine and thee.

Deem'st thou that no honour liveth
  Save in haughty breasts like thine?
Think'st thou men, like dogs in spirit,
  At such blows but wince and whine?

Often in the dangerous tempest,
  When the winds before the blast
Surging charged like crested horsemen
  Over helm, and plank, and mast,
He, and all his kin before him,
  Well have kept the clansman's faith,
Serving thee in every danger,
  Shielding thee from harm and skaith.

'Mid the glens and hills, in combats
  Where the blades of swordsmen meet,
Has he fought with thee the Campbells,
  Mingling glory with defeat.

But as waters round Eorsa
  Darken deep, then blanch in foam,
When the winds Ben More has harboured
  Burst in thunder from their home,

So the brow fear never clouded
  Blackens now 'neath anger's pall,
And the lips, to speak disdaining,
  Whiten at revenge's call!


PART II.

Late, when many years had passed him,
  And the Chiefs old age begun,
Seemed his youth again to blossom
  With the birth of his fair son.

Late, when all his days had hardened
  Into flint his nature wild,
Seemed it softer grown and kinder
  For the sake of that one child.

And again a hunting morning
  Saw Loch Buy and his men,
With his boy, his guests, and kinsmen,
  Hidden o'er a coppiced glen.

Deep within its oaken thickets
  Ran its waters to the sea:
On the hill the Chief lay careless,
  While the child watched eagerly.

'Neath them, on the shining Ocean,
  Island beyond island lay,
Where the peaks of Jura's bosom
  Rose o'er holy Oronsay.

Where the greener fields of Islay
  Pointed to the far Kintyre,
Fruitful lands of after-ages,
  Wasted then with sword and fire.

For the spell that once had gathered
  All the chiefs beneath the sway
Of the ancient Royal sceptre
  Of the Isles had passed away.

Once from Rathlin to the southward,
  Westward, to the low Tiree,
Northward, past the Alps of Coolin,
  Somerled ruled land and sea.

Colonsay, Lismore, and Scarba,
  Bute and Cumrae, Mull and Skye,
Arran, Jura, Lew's and Islay
  Shouted then one battle-cry.

But those Isles that, still united,
  Fought at Harlaw, Scotland's might,
Broken by their fierce contentions
  Singly waged disastrous fight.

And the teaching of forgiveness,
  Grey Iona's creed, became
Not a sign for men to reverence,
  But a burning brand of shame.

Still among the names that Ruin
  Had not numbered in her train,
Lived the great Clan, proud as ever
  Of the race of strong Maclaine.

And his boy, like her he wedded,
  Though of nature like the dove,
Showed the eagle-spirit flashing
  Through her heritage of love.

Heir of all the vassals' homage
  Rendered to the grisly sire,
He had grown his people's treasure,
  Fostered as their heart's desire.

Surely Safety guards his footsteps;
  Enmity he hath not sown:
Yet who stealthily glides near him,
  Whose the arm around him thrown?

It is Eachan, who has wolf-like
  Seized upon a helpless prey!
Fearlessly and fast he bears him
  Where a cliff o'erhangs the bay.

There, while sea-birds scream around them,
  Holding by his throat the boy,
Eachan turns, and to the father
  Shouts in scorn and mocking joy:

"Take the punishment thou gavest,
  Give before all there a pledge
For my freedom, or thy darling
  Dying, falls from yonder ledge.

"Take the strokes in even number
  As thou gavest, blow for blow,
Then dishonoured, on thine honour
  Swear to let me freely go."

Silent in his powerless anger
  Stood the Chief, with all his folk;
And before them all the ransom
  Was exacted stroke for stroke.

Then again the voice of vengeance
  Pealed from Eachan's lips in hate:
"Childless and dishonoured villain,
  Expiation comes too late.

"My revenge is not completed!"
  And they saw in dumb despair
How he hurled his victim downward
  Headlong through the empty air.

Then they heard a yell of laughter
  As they turned away the eye;
And they gazed again where nothing
  Met their sight but cliff and sky;

For the murderer dared to follow
  Where the youthful spirit fled,
To the Throne of the Avenger,
  To the Judge of Quick and Dead.



_THE HARD STRAIT OF THE FEINNE_

Now of the hard strait of the Feinne this legend's verse shall tell:
When Fionn's men had fought and won, and all with them was well,
And victory on Erin's shores had given spoil which they
Alone could win whose swords of old were mightiest in the fray:
For in those days the bravest hand, and not the craftiest brain,
Got gold, and skill in gallant fight was found the surest gain.
Great Fionn's wont it was to give, when foes had bled and broke,
A feast to nobles and to chiefs and all the humble folk:
Upon the plain they sat, and ate the meat which smoking came
From layers of stone, well laid on pits half filled with charcoal flame,
Where 'neath the covering roof of turf that kept the heat aglow.

The boar was quickly roasted whole, with many a stag and roe.
And while the feast, with laugh and jest, gave careless time to most,
Two watchers bold kept guard the while, and gazed o'er sea and coast--
Two watchers good, and keenly eyed, sent out by Fionn to mark
If danger rode upon the sea, with Norway's pirate bark.
Full well they watched, although behind they heard the shouted song,
And knew the wine was bathing red the fair beards of the strong,
While chanted verse, and music's notes, arose upon the air,
And the briny breeze itself half seemed a savoury steam to bear;
Nor left their post, when from the clouds the hailstones leaped to ground,
And plaids were wrapt o'er shoulders broad, and o'er deep chests were
     wound.
But Fionn's plaid untouched lay yet upon the earth outspread,
And white it grew as lichened rock, or Prophet's hoary head.
"Oh would it were all ruddy gold, there lying thickly strewn;
What joy were ours to share alike, and bear away each stone."
And laughingly each filled his hands, forgetful of the twain,
Their comrades good, on guard who stood to watch the moor and main.
But when their lonely vigil o'er, they, Roin and Ailde, came,
And found how little friendship counts, when played the spoiler's game,
Sore angered that no hand for them had set apart a prize,
They murmured. "With such men of greed all faith and kindness dies!
When thus they deal with us in peace, how shall we fare when blood
Runs from the wounds to blind the eyes to aught but selfish good?"
They swore that they forgotten thus were better far away,
And sailed to Lochlin's distant shore, and served in her array.
Their fame was great in Norway's realm, and love for Ailde came
To melt the heart of Norway's queen, a sudden quenchless flame.
She fled with Ailde from the King, and soon on Scotland's coast
She trod, a messenger of ill, a danger to the host
Great Eragon, far Lochlin's King, was not the man to know
The blood mount hot at insult's stroke without an answering blow,
His dragon keels were rolled to waves that shouted welcome loud
To glittering helm and painted shield beneath each spar and shroud
Oh! strong was Eragon in war, in battle victor oft,
From many a rank, from many a mast his banner streamed aloft;
With forty ships he set to sea, and scores of glancing oars
Streaked white his wake on fiord and loch along the echoing shores.
The Shetland Islands saw them pass, where on the tides, their sails
Shone like a flight of mighty swans, fast borne on wintry gales:
Hoarse as the raven's note their oath rang over all the seas,
False Fionn's host should bend and break before the Northern breeze.
And southward, onward still they steered, and up Loch Leven bore,
As you may know, for one great ship was lost upon the shore:
The sunken rock on which she drove and inlet where she lay
Were called the Galley's Crag and Port, and bear the name to-day.
They left her, taking all her crew, and landing near Glencoe,
On level ground their tents were set, thick planted row on row.

To Fionn of the Feinne that day, King Eragon sent word,
To yield him homage or abide the hard doom of the sword;
But grievous then was Fionn's strait, for thrice a thousand men,
His best and bravest, far away were hunting hill and glen.
The wives, the old and feeble folk alone were left, and these
He gathered, asking how to blind the strangers of the seas?
Then gave they counsel: "We are weak. By thee must peace be sought,
E'en though with massy store of gold the boon to-day be bought;
And if all this do not avail," they said, "O Fionn, thou
Shouldst yield thy daughter as the price, our ransom on her brow!"
Their messenger then offered these before the set of sun;
When flamed the wrath from Norway's King: "I ask not what I've won,
Your master stands before you now, my vengeance is my own;
For Ailde's deed the Feinne as slaves in Norway shall atone."
Back went the messenger in haste, and sadly Fionn knew
The threat was uttered by the strong, against the old and few.
But homeward from the forest soon he saw each hero's hound
Come swiftly back, in front of all he saw his Oscar bound;
And when the foremost hunters came, he told their noble band
How fight was sought with them this day upon the Northern strand.
Then looked they for some ground whose strength would quickly hide and save
Their little force, till gathering might gave fortune to the brave.
They dug four trenches deep, where firs above the birches flung
Red gnarled limbs that glowed at eve the dark green plumes among;
There hidden silently they watched, while rugged, scarred, and high,
Just at their rear a peak appeared to move against the sty.
Steep were its rocky ledges, strewn with jagged stones that lay
So loose one hand might send a mass on its resistless way,
While from the neighbouring hills the mount was sundered by a glen,
Where lightly crossed the grey cloud mists, but never mortal men.
Such was the chosen fort The Feinne into the trenches went;
For succour through all Alban's realm their messengers were sent;
To the green slopes of deep Glencoe the warriors summoned came,
Alas, too few to brave in fight the men of Norway's name.

They held long counsel, and the chief sent forth that hostage fair
His daughter, with a chosen band, his words of peace to bear;
And Fergus, his young son, to speak on his behalf, that they
Might change to love the king's black thought, and all his wrath allay--
For Fergus' speech, like ivy wreath, o'er heart of rock could wind
Till tender thoughts, like nestling birds, would come and shelter find.
Wealth to awake the Northmen's greed should weight his tempting word
For quaichs of gold and precious belts, and magic stones which stirred
The torpid blood of all disease to vigorous life once more,
And fivescore mares of iron grey, and hunting hawks threescore,
Were gifts to promise, with good herds, and cows with calves at side.
They placed the maid upon a horse, and bade her boldly ride;
With Fergus marching at her rein, his comrades close at hand,
They came to where the fleet and camp thick covered sea and land.

And halting there, young Fergus spake across a space of ground
Unto the king, who foremost stood with mailed men around;
He offered all the tribute rich, and that fair lady proud.
But when he ceased a silence fell, and then the answer loud
In Eragon's deep voice rang forth: "Let Fionn bring me all,
All that he hath on earth, and here let him before me fall,
Him and his wife before me here upon the shore, that I
May see them on their knees to me swear troth and fealty,
While as they homage make I shall above them rear my blade
To spare, or slay them at my feet, if so their debt be paid."

Then called in scorn the lady's voice, "No, Eragon, your might
Hath not across the broad salt seas brought such a host to fight
As e'er shall cause my father's knees to bend to you in prayer,
Nor shall you ever call me bride, or spoil of Erin wear."
She quickly turned her horse and went, but Fergus stood and waved
The signal banner for the chief, and for awhile he braved
The onset of the foe, and fought until the evening fell.
Then gave the council their advice to Fionn. "It were well
That Ailde should himself defy the king, and man to man
With sevenscore 'gainst sevenscore contend before the van."
And thus they fought, and Ailde fell, and Eragon defied
An equal band to equal fight, for great had grown his pride.
Then paused and pondered Fionn long, and doubted whom to ask
To lead in such a venture great, and dare so grave a task.
But Goll, the son of Morna, named at Fionn's call, went forth
And matched with equal force, back drove the boasters of the North.
And yet again a band as strong was overcome and made
To own our heroes' swords were best, when man to man arrayed;
But Eragon in fury cried his men should conquer yet.
For eight days more aye sevenscore 'gainst sevenscore were set,
And when the blood had flowed in streams, to utter madness urged
Against the trenches of the Feinne their baffled army surged.

Then sparkled swords like gleams of light upon the ocean's spray
When tossed aloft to wind and sun where battling currents play.
In that fierce fray did Eragon the son of Morna greet,
And, striking fast their mighty blades ascend and flashing meet;
Then sank the stranger king in death, and Goll sore wounded fell,
Against the Northmen went the day; and of their slain they tell
That from Glen Fewich to the shore they lay, and of the host
So few escaped that galleys twain alone left Scotland's coast.
Nay, even they ne'er reached a port, so that in Norway none
Could tell how Eragon revenged the deed by Ailde done.
But sorrow came upon the Feinne for all their strongest, dead;
And Fionn found that from that time his fortune waned and fled,
For ne'er again in equal strength the Feinne in arms were seen
Since the dark days of Ailde's love, and Norway's evil queen.

_Note._--This story was taken down by J. Dewar in prose from oral
recitation in Gaelic in 1860. Translated by H. McLean, of Islay. It
is rendered here nearly literally.



_TOBERMORY BAY._

1588.

In the vapour and haze on the ocean,
  Where the skies and the waters meet,
There's a form that drifts, phantom-like, onward
  As it follows the grey clouds' feet.

O'er the sea come the winds and the billows,
  And they howl to the rocks, and they cry,
They will bring them a wreck on the morrow,
  Ere the joy of the tempest die.

The shade looming dark in the distance
  Is naught but a galleon proud;
And the spray has long battered her turrets,
  And loosened each yard and each shroud;

But not on the surf-beaten islands,
  Nor yet upon Morven's land,
Does she drive, for her rudder, unshattered,
  Is firm in the steersman's hand.

No mist wreath, no cloud, was the shadow
  That moved on the height of the seas;
Like a castle how steep are her bulwarks,
  Her spars like a forest of trees!

She is safe from the gales for a season,
  In the shelter and calm of the sound;
A harbour named after the Virgin,
  The "Well of Our Lady" she found.

She may rest in that haven, hill-girdled,
  Near the shade of the woods on the shore,
Where the hush of the forest is deepened
  By the waterfall's song evermore.

How grandly her masts rise to heaven,
  How glitters the blest Mary's form,
High placed o'er the stern, and upholding
  The Prince of our Peace through the storm!

Now waters their orisons murmur
  As they fold her bright robes to their breast,
Where they mirror the galleried windows,
  And the flag and the face of the Blest.

Again with that sign and the banner
  Of the gold and the crimson of Spain,
Shall this ship front the foes of the Virgin,
  And the English be chased from the Main.

Yes, again on the heretic Saxon
  Her cannon shall thunder in scorn,
Till in triumph through insolent England
  Shall the Faith and King Philip be borne.

But the rows of dark mouths that have spoken
  Defiance with sulphurous breath,
Glisten black, stretching forth in the silence,
  And in vain ask the presence of death.

Yes, repose and surcease of all hazard,
  A truce to all war for a time!
The cliffs and the pines only echo
  The laugh of a sunnier clime.

And gaily the dark-visaged seamen
  Quaff, cursing the mists and the rain;
Gravely drinking from goblets of silver
  Sits their chief, Don Fereija of Spain. [1]

[1] This galleon was said to have been "The Florida," commanded
by Don Fereija. A search at Madrid among the archives shows that the
only vessel named the "_Florida_" in the Armada, was a small ship
which came safely back to Santander Roads after the destruction of
the fleet. No commander had the name assigned to the captain of the
vessel sunk at Tobermory. The identity of this galleon remains, therefore,
a mystery.

But the souls of the men to whose nostrils
  Had risen the smoke of the fight,
Soon tired of the shore and of slumber,
  Soon yearned for the red battle light.

And courtesy fled from the weary,
  From idleness arrogance grew;
And all they received as a favour
  They haughtily claimed as their due.

Then answered the Islesmen in anger,
  "The food you demand as your own,
By our people's free favour long given
  Shall be bought by your gold now alone."

"Now, down with the savage's envoy,
  Set sail and away on our track!
Carthagena's sweet girls shall deride him,
  And jeer the red locks on his back."

Below, in the dark narrow spaces,
  The Islesman gropes, down in the hold;
Unnoticed, and one among many;
  What harm can his hatred unfold?

Swarm the men to the rigging, and swiftly
  Shine clouds of white canvas, and clank
The links of the anchor's great cable,
  Creaks, trampled on deck, every plank:

Swings round the huge bowsprit, and slowly
  With motion majestic and free,
The galleon, vast, gilded, and mighty,
  Passes on, passes forth, to the sea.

Her colours still paint all the ripples,
  Repeated her banners all seem,
Her sails, and her gold, and her cannon
  Float on like a gorgeous dream.

Came a flash, and a roar, and a smoke-cloud
  Rushed up, and spread far o'er the sky;
Sank a wreck, black, and rugged, and blasted,
  While the sound on the winds swept by.

And the mountains sent back the dull thunder
  As though to all time they would tell
The vengeance that pealed to the Heavens
  From the Harbour of "Mary's Well."



_LOCH UISK, ISLE OF MULL._

Yon vale among the mountains,
  So sheltered from the sea,
That lake which lies so lonely,
  Shall tell their tale to thee.

Here stood a stately convent
  Where now the waters sleep,
Here floated sweeter music
  Than comes from yonder deep.
Above the holy building
  The summer cloud would rest,
And listen where to heaven
  Rose hymns to God addressed;
For the hills took up the chanting,
  And from their emerald wall
The sounds they loved, would, lingering,
  In fainter accents fall.

Hard by, beside a streamlet
  Fast flowing from a well,
A nun, in long past ages,
  Had built her sainted cell:
To her in dreams 'twas given
  As sacred task and charge,
To keep unchanged for ever
  The bright Spring's mossy marge.
"Peace shall with joys attendant
  For ever here abide,
While reverently and faithfully
  You guard its taintless tide."

And when she knew her spirit
  Was summoned to its rest,
To all around her gathered
  She gave that high behest;
And many followed after
  To seek the life she chose,
Till, like a flower, in glory
  The cloistered convent rose.

Through Scotland's times of bloodshed,
  Of foray, feud, and raid,
Their home became the haven
  Where storm and strife were stayed.
Men blessed each dark-robed Sister,
  And thought an angel trod,
Where walked in love and meekness
  A lowly maid of God!

Right happy were they, lighting
  With love those days of doom;
For heart need ne'er be darkened
  By any garment's gloom.
Yes, often life thereafter
  Was here with gladness crowned,
For, sad as seemed their vesture
  The peace of God was found
His holiness in beauty
  Made every trial seem
A rock that lies all harmless
  Deep hidden in a stream.
While life was pure there never
  Was wish in thought to gain
The world, where far behind them
  The black nuns left their pain;
And time but flew too quickly
  O'er that friend-circle small,
Where each one loved her neighbour,
  And God was loved of all.

Still from its beauteous chalice,
  That well's unceasing store
Poured forth, through whispering channels,
  The crystal load it bore.
Hope seemed to bring the fountain
  To seek the light of day;
Faith made it bright; Obedience
  Smoothed, hallowing, its way.
Full many a gorgeous Summer
  Woke heather into bloom,
And oft cold stars in Winter
  Looked on a Sister's tomb;
Before the joy had withered
  That virtue once had nursed;
Before their Lord and Master
  Grew love for things accursed.
Lo! then the stream neglected
  Forsook its wonted way:
In stagnant pools, dark-tainted,
  Its wandering waters lay.

There choked by moorland ridges,
  Black with the growth of peat,
Beneath the quaking surface
  The fetid floods would meet;
Till rising, spreading ever
  Above the chalice green
Of that fair Well, they covered
  The place where it had been.
Then, near the careless convent,
  Within the hill's deep shade,
The Fate which works in silence
  A lake had slowly made.
As evil knows not halting
  When passions strongly flow,
So daily deeper, deeper
  Would those dark waters grow;
Till on an awful midnight,
  When red the windows flamed
And song and jest and revel
  The Vesper hour had shamed,
And wanton sin dishonoured
  The time Christ's birth had crowned,
They burst their banks in darkness,
  And with their raging sound
The rocks of all the valley
  Rung for a few hours' space;
Then the wide Loch at morning
  Reflected heaven's face.

Few voices now are heard there,
  Around the wild deer feed;
And winds sigh loud in Autumn
  Through copse, and rush, and reed.
Men say that when in darkness
  They pass the water's verge,
Each hears, mid sounds of revel
  The "Miserere's" dirge;
That faintly, strangely, ever
  Upon the Loch's dark breast,
Beneath, above, around it
  Shine lights that never rest.

Of all such ghastly phantoms,
  Bred of the night and fear,
By hope of our salvation
  None meets the noontide clear!
The blue sky's tender beauties
  Upon the strong floods shine,
As God's eternal mercy
  Dwells with His might divine!
Pure as their mystic fountain
  They sleep and flow unstained,
Although the hue of sorrow
  Hath in their depths remained.

The swallow, swiftly passing
  Flies low to kiss the wave
When rippling gently over
  Some pure saint's holy grave:
The hunter's eyes discover
  Beneath those waters still
The walls of that proud convent,
  Where God hath worked His will.


_THE LADY'S ROCK_

A brother's eye had seen the grief
  That Duart's lady bore;
His boat with sail half-raised flies down
  The sound by green Lismore.
Ahaladah, Ahaladah!
  Why speeds your boat so fast?
No scene of joy shall light your track
  Adown the spray-strewn blast.

The very trees upon the isle
  Rock to and fro, and wail;
The very birds cry sad and shrill,
  Storm driven, where you sail;
O when for yon dim mainland shore
  You launched your keel to start
You knew not of the load 'twill bear,
  The heavier load your heart.

See what is that, which yonder gleams,
  Where skarts alone make home;
Is that but one oft-breaking sea,
  Some frequent fount of foam?
The morn is dark and indistinct,
  Is all through drift and cloud;
Around the rock white waters toss,
  As flaps in wind a shroud.

It cannot be a leaping jet,
  Nor form of rock or wave
There stands some being saved by God
  In mercy from the grave!
"Down with the sail, out oars! the boat
  Can reach the leeward side:
Mother of Heaven! look you, men,
  Where breaks that roaring tide."

"A living woman, do I dream
  Or stands my sister there,
Where only at the middle ebb
  The shelving ledge is bare?"
O white as surf that sweeps her knee,
  She falls, but not to die;
Ahaladah is at her side,
  He bears her up on high.

Away from Duart now he steers;
  Why curses he its lord;
Why flee to Inveraray's strength,
  As though he feared his sword?
Proud triumph's notes were often heard
  Where Aray's waters sing,
And mourners there have often wept
  The slain for faith and king.

But never would that lady's lips
  There speak her grievous woe,
Though in her chamber in the night
  Her frequent tears would flow.
She dreamt of wrong where love was sought,
  Of crafty cruel eyes,
Of one steep stair, of grasping hands
  That stifled piteous cries;

Of wind which tore the hissing waves,
  And howled o'er mountains bare;
Where swollen burns in feathery clouds
  Were dashed into the air.
Of one wet rock, of horror wild,
  When she was left alone,
Till madness seemed to whelm her thought
  And, with a shuddering moan,

Again she heard the surges rush,
  And, where she shrinking turned,
The seaweed there, like woman's hair,
  The murderous billows spurned.
Again the night and wind were joined
  To mock her hope of aid,
Till shrieking, she awoke, where once
  She slept a happy maid.

But none would she accuse, and dumb
  Rebuked the vengeance call,
Till one dark eve at supper-time
  Within the old dim hall,
She heard some whisper, and she saw
  Her brother leave his place,
Go forth, and entering, beckon out
  A band, with stern set face.

Again he came, and o'er her bent,
  And whispered "Sister dear,
Let fall your veil about your head,
  Nor tremble when you hear
That Duart comes in mourner's guise!
  Lo, there he takes his seat.
Chief, tell us why your mien is sad,
  When friends and kinsmen meet?"

"My woes are great, my wife lies dead,
  But yester week these hands
Closed her sweet eyes, and now I bring
  Her body to your lands."
Then was the arras drawn aside
  And girt with wake lights drear,
Beneath the archway's carven vault,
  Was borne a white-crossed bier.

And Duart rose; his shifting eye
  Moved like a marsh-fire pale,
But circling back, still restless scanned
  The lady of the veil.
Then through the silence broke a voice,
  "Know you that lady, chief?
She too, a guest with us, like you,
  Well knows the pangs of grief.

"You come from far, bring wine." To each
  The ruddy goblet passed.
The lady raised her hand, and back
  The heavy veil she cast.
Strong Duart reeled as from a stroke;
  He stared as at the dead:
How could her glance o'er that dark face
  Such deathly palor spread?

"Your play is out, ah cursed fiend!"
  Ahaladah cried loud;
"Your death shall be no phantom false,
  No empty mask your shroud:
If hospitality's high law
  Here shields your life awhile,
By all the saints you yet shall feel
  The vengeance of Argyll."

       *       *       *       *       *

In Edinburgh Duart's Lord
  Strides down the shadowed town;
The white moon glints on roofs o'erhead,
  And on St Giles's crown.
Another step is on the street,
  The watchmen hear no cry;
But drenched in blood lies Duart, where
  Ahaladah passed by.



_THE POOL OF THE IRON SHIRT._

Colin, Chief of Diarmid's kin,
Strode alone to Ederlinn.

Night, and heath, and deep morass
Hear the chain-mailed warrior pass.
Ambushed lay the treacherous foe,
Ear to earth, and dart on bow.

Vain their arrows' ringing hail
Fell on pointed helm and mail.

As he backward leaped, there flew
Moonlight down the sword he drew.


In his front the lonely man
Saw approach the hostile van:

Near him on the moor a tarn;
On a knoll a wattled barn.

Refuge bad, yet near its door
Sank the hot pursuit's uproar.

For, unsheathed his battle brand,
There they saw great Colin stand.

Dauntless cried he: "Here within
Rest I, then to Ederlinn!"

Yelled the circling hounds in ire,
Set the woven wall on fire.

Sword in hand he stood, the light
Gleaming on his limbs of might,

Like a cloud-built column high,
Red, in sunset's flaming sky.

All too hot for mortal frame
Glowed his armour, wrapped in flame.

Hidden by the wreaths of smoke,
Hewing through the wall, he broke,

Felling seven, onward sped
Plunging through the lake's reed-bed.

Hiss the waters where he springs,
Hatred's yell again forth rings.

But he throws his mail away,
Dives, and darkness hides his way.

Smiling hears their lessening din;
Onward strides to Ederlinn.

Ages since have passed, yet still
Tales recount his dauntless will.

"Pool of the Iron shirt," thy name
Keeps, in Erse, the hero's fame.

Look you, race of ancient Gael,
Never let such memories fail!

Set them far o'er gems and gold,
For your sons to have and hold.

Steadfast Will its goal shall win.
Fairer e'en than Ederlinn!



_INVERAWE._

Does death cleanse the stains of the spirit
  When sundered at last from the clay,
Or keep we thereafter till judgment,
  Desires that on earth had their way?
Bereft of the strength which was given
  To use for our good or our bane,
Shall yearnings vain, impotent, endless,
  Be ours with their burden of pain?

Though flesh does not clothe them, what anguish
  Must be known in the world of the dead,
If the future lies open before them,
  And fate has no secret unread.
And yet, oh how rarely our vision
  May know the lost presence is nigh;
How seldom its purpose be gathered,
  Be it comfort, or warning to die!

With mute or half breathed supplication
  Permitted to utter their prayer,
Demanding earth's justice, but ever
  Poor phantoms of mist and of air;
If in aught our belief may be certain
  Where founded on witness of man,
They come; and no tomb e'er imprisoned
  The shade when corruption began.

They come: and oh swiftly they follow
  The track of the murderer vile;
He is haunted for ever; his refuge
  A hell on far ocean or isle!
Though he fly as once fled from Barcaldine
  Young Donald's assassin, to claim
Guest-right, where all mercy a treason
  To kinship and justice became.

"Inverawe, Inverawe, give me shelter,
  I have shed a man's blood in a fray;
Oh swear that you will not betray me,
  By your dirk, by the dear light of day!"
And the prayer in his kindness he answered,
  But aghast heard the voices that cried;
"Your cousin lies slain! Can a stranger
  Have passed by the steep river side?"

Then bound by his oath he deceived them;
  But night brought a dream full of fear,
His cousin's pale image stood o'er him,
  Came a voice he had loved to his ear:
"Inverawe, Inverawe, give no shelter
  To the man by whom blood has been shed:"
And he went to his guest, saying, "Leave me,
  I obey the dear voice of the dead."

"By your oath, by the light of God's heaven
  Your word has been passed for your guest"
"Then sleep in the cave in the mountain,
  If Donald allow you to rest!"
Again shone the vision more awful,
  Ere the hours of the darkness had fled;
"Inverawe, Inverawe, give no shelter
  To the man by whom blood has been shed."

But empty the cave was at morning,
  When searched for the murderer's trace,
And the ghost came again in the darkness,
  The gore on its breast and its face.
"Inverawe, Inverawe," again whispered
  The shade of the echoless feet,
"My blood has been shed, I await thee,
  At Ticonderoga we meet."

And often in wonder repeated
  That warning to many was known,
The strangely named place for the trysting
  Men said was in dreamland alone;
"Why cherish a dismal illusion?
  War summons gay hearts to the strife:
All share in the prizes of glory,
  The chances of death or of life."

In camp, on the march, in the battle,
  His thought would repeat evermore,
"At the place fore-ordained in the vision
  I shall pass to the Dark River's shore."
And often awaiting the summons,
  He asked for the wild Indian name,
When curled o'er American hamlets
  The smoke from the guns' sudden flame.

The forest one evening was silent
  As though in the calm of a trance
Yet within it two armies were resting,
  The soldiers of Britain and France.
Our Highlanders slumbered, march-wearied,
  Their sentries at watch in the wood:
Behind their long lines of entrenchment
  The French in their bivouacs stood.

"Inverawe, take your sleep ere the morning,
  When our praise or our death shall be sung,"
A comrade cried; "soon for Carillon
  A chime that is new shall be rung!"
But the air of that night of midsummer
  Seemed chilly, and sleep fled away;
And he wandered to where, near Carillon,
  The charge would be sounded at day.

To the North a pale ray of Aurora
  Shot white o'er the black forest spars,
A lake through the pines softly gleaming
  Lay calm in the radiance of stars.
It seemed a sweet heaven, whose brightness
  Life's dark prison-bars could not hide:
As he gazed, lo, he thought that a figure
  Advanced from that silvery tide.

Distinct as a luminous shadow,
  It moved in the starlight alone,
Till it came to him close, and he shuddered,
  For the face that he saw was his own!
The cloak of the dread apparition
  His own, but bedabbled in blood!
Inverawe stretched his hand, but the spectre
  Had vanished like mist in the wood.

To the fires of his comrades returning,
  "Ah! friends, you deceived me," he said;
"Why conceal from my ears that Carillon
  Has the name that was named by the dead?
'Tis Ticonderoga, the fortress
  We march on the morrow to storm,
Where Death and the Phantom stand watching
  The hour when our column shall form."

The morn brought the hell of the onset,
  When bayonet and Highlanders' blade
Sank crushed where the trenches were flashing
  In the roll of the long fusillade.
Repulsed! O how sadly at night-fall
  The remnant was gathered and told!
In silence they thought of the wounded,
  And mourned the brave hearts that were cold.

Ere thundered again the dim battle
  Saluting the deathless in God,
A truce found that Leader all gory,
  Yet gasping his breath on the sod.
They bore him to camp, where around him
  They pressed as he beckoned in pain:
His voice seemed a breath in the forest,
  "I die--I have seen him again."



_AN ISLESMAN'S FAREWELL._

Ah! must we part, my darling?
  O let the days be few,
Until your dear returning
  To one who loves but you!
Where'er your ship be sailing,
  Think on your own love true;
The back of the wave to you, darling,
  The back of the wave to you!

The witch, who oft at midnight
  Above Ben Caillach flew,
Told me she dreamed no danger
  Athwart your vessel drew;
For you she said the breezes
  Aye strong and fairly blew;
The back of the wave to you, darling,
  The back of the wave to you!

Ah! waiting here, and trembling
  When dark the water's hue,
I'll long for the dear pleasure
  That in your glance I knew;
And pray to Him who never
  Can lose you from His view.
The back of the wave to you, darling,
  The back of the wave to you.



_PREFACE TO DIARMID'S STORY_

Best beloved of ancient stories
  Are our Diarmid's woes to me.
Like a mist, by breezes broken,
So this tale of olden glories
Floats in fragments, as a token
  Of the song of Ireland's sea.

Through long centuries repeated
  Lived the legend told in Erse,
But a change comes swift or slowly
Fades the language, and defeated
Flies the faith, once counted holy,
  Old-world ways, and oral verse.

Not from men of note or learning
  May we gather now these tales,
Heard beneath the cotter's rafter,
Or where smithy sparks are burning,
Or at sea, when hushed the laughter
  Of the breeze on hull and sails.

Then with Ossian's rhythmic Measure
  Comes upon the fancy's sight,
One with golden locks; resplendent,
Great and strong with eyes of azure,
And, again in the ascendant,
  Magic reasserts her might.

Nought can wound him, sword or arrow,
  Only powerless are the spells
Where on the footsole implanted
There is hid a birth-mark narrow,
But this hero's brow enchanted
  Every woman's love compels.

Woe to him, that she whose glances
  Won the king on Denmark's shore,
Evil, beautiful, imperious,
Born where wheel the grisly dances
Through the glen of ghosts mysterious,
  Love's first passion for him bore.

For she saw his forehead bending
  O'er the snarling dogs at strife
At the wedding-feast of greeting;
And at dusk unto him wending,
"Come," she said, "let this our meeting
  Pledge my soul to thee for life."

"If, O queen, we go together,
  Not with friends, nor yet alone
Must thou be, nor sheltered ever,
Housed, nor braving wind and weather;
If on horse or foot, then never
  Can thy love to me be known!"

Flight were shield and fence far surer
  Gainst a wily woman's ways
Than the wit of man; for seated
Ere the dawn, his fair allurer
At his open door repeated
  All his words, with longing gaze.

"Go with me, O Diarmid; see me
  Not on horse, or foot; with friends,
Nor alone; not night or morning
Reigns: O come; thou wilt not flee me?
Never lived a warrior scorning
  Every joy that loving lends!"

Then at last by her caresses
  Into flight and guilt beguiled,
Diarmid loathed his life, abiding
In the caves' or woods' recesses,
Like a thief or coward hiding,
  To his fate unreconciled.

Thus the mightiest magician
  Warped the true and loyal heart,
And he fled with her, forsaking.
Friends and kinsfolk, while contrition
Gnawed into his life's days, making
  Sad his journey, hard his part.

He, a fugitive, whose valiance
  Made the Feinne fair Erin's boast!
Where the red cascade descended,
Lovely Grinie's evil dalliance
Held him thrall as though were ended
  Noble warring with the host.

He a slave! whose oaths had ever
  Bade him "champion the oppressed,"
Pledged him to "confound the clever,
Aid the losing man's endeavour,
Be the first in fight, and never
  Heedless of the king's behest"

Once upon a rock, tree-shrouded,
  Hungry they had climbed to eat
Where the scarlet berries clustered:
Suddenly below them crowded
Dogs and huntsmen, 'til were mustered
  All the Feinne beneath their feet.

Fionn, then, their grim commander,
  Dreaming not his wife was near,
Had a giant chess-board graven
On the sod, and played; and under
The green leaves which gave him haven
  Diarmid watched the game in fear.

Oscar lost, with Fionn playing,
  Until Diarmid, from on high
Dropped the scarlet seeds to guide him,
Thus his presence there betraying:
And the friends of Fionn eyed him,
  Shouting, "Thou shalt surely die!"

But all Diarmid's comrades for him
  Fought, each venturing his life:
And amid the dread commotion
Fled the twain, until before him
To the peaceful sands of ocean
  Ran a woodland stream of strife.

Dwelling on its banks he made him
  There the wooden bowls that none
Fashioned with the dirk so deftly.
But the chattering stream betrayed him:
From the secret forest swiftly
  Flashed white shavings in the sun.

Then the king cried, "Grinie's lover
  Near us hath his lurking place!
Sound the hunting horns around him!
See if from the thickets' cover
By the ancient vows that bound him
  He shall come to join the chase!"

       *       *       *       *       *

How the queen bore his upbraiding;
  How his death in hunting came,
Tell the verses here translated:
Lights are they, in transit fading,
Scattered sparks, oblivion fated,
  Memories from a mighty flame!



_GRINIE'S FLIGHT WITH DIARMID._

(FROM THE GAELIC)

The Hern at early morning cries,
Where at Sleve-gail the meadow lies.

Say, Duin's son, whom I love well,
Canst thou thereof the reason tell?

O! Gormla's daughter, thou whose sire
Was named from tireless steeds of fire;

Thou evil-working one! thy feet
Tread treacherous ways of ice and sleet.

Grinie! of lovelier hue than Spring
To flower, or bloom on bough can bring,

More fleeting far your love that flies
Like the cold clouds of dawning skies.

Because of thine ill-chosen part
My fortune's firm set rivets start.

Yes, thine the deed, brought low to pain,
My grievous woe thine only gain.

From palaces of kings beguiled,
For ever outcast and exiled:

Like night-owl mourning, as she strays,
Her joy through dark and distant ways.

Like timid hind or hunted deer,
Through secret glens I tread in fear.

Shunning the loving friends who hold
The house of hosts so loved of old.

Their forms shone glorious as the lights
On the deep snows of frosted heights.

All these I left--mine own--whose love
Was generous as the Sun above.

But they are now hate-filled as though
Hate's sea would never ebb ward flow.

Yes, since beguiled by you I fled,
Misfortune follows where I tread.

Lost now my white sailed fleet's array,
Through you my band is lost for aye.

Gone all my wealth, my gems, my gold,
All for the tale of love you told!

To me my friends are lost, to me
No more my country mine shall be.

Lost are my men whom none e'er found
Weak behind shield on battle ground.

Lost is their kindness evermore
The love for me the Feinne once bore.

Lost to mine honour mine own right,
Lost music's joy and lost delight;

Erin and all I there have known,
For your ill-omened love alone.

Return I dare not,--may not,--never
Know their great friendship, gone for ever.

More than the beast of sharpest beard
My deed in hate by Fionn is feared.
Yes, fairest Grinie, thou hast done
Ill to thyself in love thus won.

Thou, winning hatred, wentst with me,
And kingly joys were spurned by thee.

GRINIE.

O Diarmid! O Diarmid! of face far more fair
Than the new-fallen snow, or the hill flowret rare,
The sound of thy voice was more dear to my breast
Than all the bright satin the Fianti possessed.

More beloved to me is the hue of thine eyes,
Those eyes like the morning's bright dew of the skies,
Ay, dearer to me than all strength or all gold
The great hall of the king of the Feinne shall e'er hold.

Love's mark is more sweet on thy beautiful brow
Than honey that drops where the green grasses bow;
Ah, when I beheld it above me, how pale
Seemed the glory and power of the Monarch of Fail.

My heart seemed to fall as I looked at thy face,
Adoring thy might ever blended with grace,
And wert thou not mine, to be gained to my side,
Not one day in this world would my spirit abide.

Oh! white-handed hero, so handsome, so strong,
Although it is I who have wrought all thy wrong,
Yet stay, stay again with me, wife would I be,
Vowing never on earth to be faithless to thee.

DIARMID.

Why love a woman mild in speech,
And yet a traitoress to each?

GRINIE.

'Twas misery sundered my life from the king's,
I left thee awhile, for love, torturing, stings;
Never more will I leave thee-my tender love round
thee
Like fresh boughs for thy life, would have sheltered
and crowned thee.

DIARMID.

Fulfil then thy word, though so faithless, how fair!
Thy love, oh my Grinie, no giant shall share.



_Note._--From Gaelic verse, printed by J. F. Campbell, Esq.,
in "Leabhar na Feinne."

_THE DEATH OF THE BOAR_

[Taken from "Leabhar na Feinne," and a prose version written
down from oral recitation by J. Dewar.]

OSSIAN.

This vale of Peace, this glen close by,
Where deer and elk would often cry,
Of old saw the fleet-footed Fianti bound
In the strath of the west as they followed the hound.

List if you wish to hear a lay
Of gentle folks long passed away,
Of him who was Prince; of Gulban's blue hill,
And sorrow-cursed Diarmid's sad legend of ill.

AUDIENCE.

Loved Ossian, sweetest voiced, what day
But sees us listeners to thy lay?
Such strains from no birds of the shoreland can float,
Though dawn give each leaf in the woodland a note.

OSSIAN.

My own good king was hunting gone,
They whom no deerlike terror won,
His Feinne, through the secret glens followed, and we
Descended the slopes that lead down to the sea.

Then saw our own great king, whose word
The Feinne, the brave, obeying heard,
A nine folded shaving of wood brightly curled,
Shining white, as to seaward the swift waters swirled.

He grasped it, scanning it, the coil
Hid five feet and a span of soil;
Then loudly he cried, "Ah, Diarmid is here,
No swordsman of Cormac, but Diarmid is near!"

In truth, my own good king then swore
To break his fast and drink no more,
Until were unearthed the vile face of his foe,
If the caves of all Erin should refuge bestow.

Our hounds we sent, and shouting went
Where o'er the vales the branches bent;
The wild-cat we chased from the glens, that the cheer
And cries of our hunting might fall on his ear.

He who was never weak in fight
Heard the loud voices strike the height;
To Grinie he cried, "Though the hounds do not bay,
I wait not their voice, to the hunt I'll away."

GRINIE.

O Diarmid! wait until they cry,
That hunting shout is but a lie,
Where grieves for his wife Cuall's son, there for thee
Thou know'st thy peril for ever must be.

DIARMID

Ere hounds can open on the scent,
To every chase my steps are bent,
And shame were it now for the king's evil will
To lose a good hunt as it sweeps o'er the hill.

OSSIAN.

Then down came Diarmid to the vale,
To the famed sons of Innisfail,
And glad was the king, for his foe in his sight
Came aidless and powerless to baffle his might.

Where o'er his red straths Gulban soars,
Were haunts well loved by savage boars,
And fine were the knolls on the blue mountain's face,
Where oft for King Fionn resounded the chase.

There Grinie's love brought her to shame,
'Twas there the king, with cheeks of flame,
Commanded the hunt, and 'twas there Diarmid stood
To watch for the boar if he broke from the wood.

Deceit a grievous evil wrought!
The monster's ear our tumult caught;
He moved in the glen, as from east and from west,
The shouting grew louder as nearer we pressed.

Envenomed, old, rage-filled, his jaw
Foamed as his eyes the heroes saw,
And faster he went, his strong bristles and mane
Erect, sharp as darts, strong as wood of the plain;

_High reeds that fringed a marsh he found,--
Turned on the dogs all baying round,
And killed in a moment the bravest, and glared
As though to the combat their master he dared._

FIONN.

A huge old boar hastes yonder, mark
Of wounding full and bloodstains dark,
Now follow yourself, noble Diarmid, there goes
A monster of evil and terrible woes.

OSSIAN.

As quick his way the warrior took,
No trembling hand the javelin shook,
And hurrying fast as he closed with the boar
He rushed as in floodtide the wave to the shore.

Shot gleaming from white hand the spear,
Straight through the flank its path to shear,
But, splintering there, left the head buried deep;
The shaft fell in three as it whirred o'er the steep.

The sword, the olden, he unsheathed
That victory in each battle breathed,
Then died the great beast on its blade's dripping length;
Unweakened, unharmed rose the youth in his strength.

But gloom the monarch's heart oppressed,
For from the hillside to the west,
He saw how fair Diarmid, unhurt by the tooth,
A conqueror stood in the beauty of youth.

_He saw the Feinne's loud wandering band,
Deep-ringed around the carcass stand,
And heard as they praised the good courage and might
That vanquished so soon the grim beast in the fight._
[The verses in italics are from the prose version received from J. Dewar]

_But Diarmid went apart, lest he
To praise of self should listener be;
That praise was to Conan's vile envy a sting,
Whose eye looked for gain to the hands of the king._

_A dart in deadly poison dipped
Among the rough black hair he slipped,
And none could have seen where the bristles o'erlaid
The point firmly set of the venomous blade._

Then silent long, the king at last
Spake, all his thought to hatred cast,
"O Diarmid, now measure the Boar, snout to heel,
What length on the ground may the dark hide conceal?"

What man among the Feinne e'er saw
The youth from friend or foe withdraw?
He measured the back barefooted, and passed
Unharmed down the rugged spine, rigid and vast.

FIONN.

"O youth, whose weapons wound so sore,
I pray thee prove this yet once more,
Whate'er thou desirest I'll give thee, but see,
From foot to the snout what the measurement be?"
OSSIAN.

Again his sandals he unlaced,
And 'gainst the hair he slowly paced,
_And bare was the foot where alone mortal harm
Could strike his limbs guarded by magic and charm._

_There at one spot, lifers crimson well
Was fenced by no enchanted spell.
Ah! if on that death-spot but one vein were rent,
How staunchless the flow of lifts fountain unpent!_

And fear was on him: as he stepped,
A keen pang through his senses swept,
For, pierced by the venomous bristle, his sight
Saw gloom shroud the mountain, and darkness the light.

Full soon the poison through his veins
Ran like a fire with fever's pains,
Then sank the bright locks of the warrior brave,
Whose face bore in anguish the hue of the grave.

His blood ran fast, as down a hill
From some high spring a slender rill;
Ah, piteous it was on the brae to behold
How the guileless youth lay in his torture untold.

The cheek which shared the berry's hue
Which flushes red the hillside's dew,
Now blanched, was as cold as a cloud when it lies
Blue-shadowed at noon in the vault of the skies.

DIARMID.

A drink, one drink, O Fionn, give,
One cup to let me drink and live!
My blood flows so fast, give me drink from the spring.
Oft kind were thy words, the good words of a king!

FIONN.

No! not one cup your lips shall drain,
To quench your thirst, to cool your pain!
What good is your life to me? what has it won,
That the deed of one hour has not more than undone?

DIARMID.

Not mine the wish to cause you care,
In East or West, not here or there!
But Grinie's the evil, when, captive, I found
Her love but a shadow, her word but a sound!

A drink, one drink, O Fionn, give,
One cup to let me drink and live!
My blood flows so fast, give me drink from the spring,
Oft kind were thy words, the good words of a king.

FIONN.
No cup of mine your lips shall drain
To quench your thirst, to cool your pain,
What good is your life, can its fair deeds o'erpower
The guilt of one act, and the curse of one hour?

DIARMID.

If you could think of Sween's dread day--
No! vain that memory passed away!--
When fell the eight hundred and three, and my sword
In the narrow pass drank of their blood as it poured!

When prisoned in the Rowan Hold,
Of gratitude your words once told,
When the white teeth were wounding your limbs, and your breath
Came quick, for the fray brought you near unto death.
And yet again your friend was I
In Tara when the strife waxed high,
Not vainly you sought in that hour for a friend,
I fought for thee, king, making Enmity bend;

And Innse's sons, the three, the brave,
From lands far hidden by the wave:
I killed them for thee, who oppressest me sore;
Hard died they, O ruthless one, washed in their gore!

Remember Connell! see again
Carbui front thee with his men,
To the host of the Feinne see how threatening their gaze:
Ah, Gulban, I burn, as I look on thy braes.

If known to Oige's women fair
How snared and trapped I here despair,
Their mourning would rise, and their men would lament
The friend whose sad eyes on Ben Gulban are bent.

I, Diarmid of Newry named,
Of Connaught, of Beura famed--
Foster son to that Angus of Broa whose stride
Revealed the best man on the far mountain side:--

"The Eagle of the Red Cascade"--
"The blue-eyed Hawk whom no man stayed"--
They called me--"the strongest of all who could throw
The stone, or the spear, at our game or our foe."

_Then knew he, as his strength grew less
That death would end his sore distress;
The Feinne stood around, and they pitied the man
So weak, once the strongest who fought in their van._

_They searched for water, and they found
A spring, clear-eyed, in mossy ground,
But cup had they none, and their hands, as they went,
Let fall every drop ere o'er Diarmid they bent._

_In bitterness of soul he thought,
"They mock me, now that I am naught,
Your kind hands all leak! of your deed men shall tell,
The 'spring of holed palms' shall they name yonder well._

"_Yet would I ask you, now I die,
To lay me where the stream flows by
The water of Lunnan, for there in my grave
I'll hear, though I see not, its cold shining wave._

"_There place a pillar stone, and bear
My Grinie some day to me there,
And well to the traveller the words shall be known,
'Tis Diarmid who lies 'neath yon Pillar of Stone._

"Oh woe is me! a foul swine's prey,
The victor lord of battle's day!
I faint, done to death, let me turn, let me lie
With my face to Ben Gulban, to see it, and die."--

OSSIAN.

    In tears, and mourning sore,
    Then to his grave we bore
    That brave and hardy one;
    On a green knoll alone,
    Beneath a mighty stone
    That sees the western sun.

    When Grinie coming there,
    At last of all aware,
    Beheld his narrow bed;
    As though her life took flight,
    Bereft of sense and sight,
    She fell, above the dead!

    Then from her swoon awoke,
    Her voice in cries outbroke,
    And in this song of woe,
    Wherein his praise was heard
    In every mournful word,
    Above the river's flow.

GRINIE.

Two in a fastness of rock were concealed,
Oft we lay there for a year unrevealed,
Though hidden from Fionn by the stream as it leapt,
Where it wet not the head of my love as he slept.

In the hunt's contest the keenest to share,
Hard was that bed for thy thick golden hair!
Never thought he of fear as he sprang to the cry,
When the chase was afoot, and he joined it, to die!

Hour of my torture, ochone, how the pain,
Sore, and sharp, as at first, smites again and again,
Sightless dear eyes, voiceless lips, and the breath
Sweet as honey, now lost in the chambers of death!

Sister's son of a king, a monarch high-placed,
Victor and friend, once with courtesy graced!
Ah what a generous heart to have nursed
Vengeance so causeless, a plot so accursed!

Diarmid, O Love, the best sword of them all,
Victory flew to the field at thy call;
Strongest arm in the games, thou wast ever the best,
Whether called to the fight, or to aid the distressed.

Bluer your eye than the blaeberry kissed
On the high mountain's shoulder by sun and by mist;
Gentler your eyelids' soft motion, than where
The upland grass waves to the breezes of air.

Whiter your teeth than the blossoming spray
Danced in the winds 'mid the brightness of day;
Never harp was so sweet, never bird-song above,
As the voice that is hushed on the lips of my love.

Like to the sun-nurtured sparkles of air
Were the fair yellow waves of the locks of thy hair,
Pure as foam the soft skin of the one of our race,
Who was mighty in mind as majestic in grace.

Sad is my heart, to no joy-shout replying,
Restless, lamenting in grief never-dying;
Oh, the mavis calls sweetly in drear deserts lone,
But in vain I must yearn for the notes I have known.

Now shall my soul find its calm nevermore
In the depths--the blue depths--of your eyes as of yore,
Overborne by a perilous flood I shall know
Surcease of no sorrow, no lightening of woe!

Dark is your dwelling-place under the mould,
Narrow your frozen bed, songless and cold;
Never morn shalt thou see, till the day of God's doom,
When awakened, O hero, thou'lt rise from the tomb.

Dead in the earth, and there hidden away,
Who shall not yearn for thee, fairer than day?
Be my blessing now thine, be it thine evermore,
Let it rest on the beauty 'twas mine to adore.

OSSIAN.

Each bard prepared his harp for singing
  That calm and lofty hero's praise;
Deep sorrow through the long notes ringing,
  How wild their dirge, how sad their gaze!

THE BARDS.

Mayest thou be blessed, O thou our fairest
  Beloved, once to fortune dear,
If still for Ireland's Feinne thou carest,
  See how they wail thine absence here.

O strength, like flood on foemen pouring,
  Or swoop of eagle from the sky,
Or as the rush through ocean roaring
  When myriads from leviathan fly!

Beura's lord! thy fair locks, waving
  Hath ceased, pressed down beneath the soil:
Thou'rt seen no more the billows braving,
  No more thou'lt know the hunter's toil.

When blows are rained thy blade no longer
  Shall strike where clear thy war cry rose,
O man, whose love than man's seemed stronger,
  Whose voice no more high Tara knows.

For thee our eyes are red with weeping,
  No beauty like to thine have we;
Our solace gone, our best are keeping
  The death watch, bravest soul, with thee.

OSSIAN.

Yes, fallen all, to leave me living,
  A leafless tree decayed and grey,
Old oaks and young, their green life giving;
  The strong must fall, the weak must stay!

Yet though to-day so frail, what glory
  Around my youth once shone of old!
Changed world! this poor man, weak and hoary,
  Was great in war and rich in gold.



_KING ARTHUR AND THE CAPTIVE MAIDEN._

(TRANSLATED FROM THE GAELIC. [1])
[1] Taken down in Gaelic by Dewar.

King Arthur on a journey went,
His men and he on hunting bent.

Came to the hill for victories known;
He, and Sir Balva, armed alone.

The King of Britain dreamed at night
Of fairest maid 'neath Heaven's light.

Her face's beauteous hues so clear
More than all gold to him were dear.

Yet all unknown where dwelt the maid,
His doubt and awe the search delayed.

For better were a battle stern
Than, blindly wandering, still to yearn.

Then spoke Sir Balva, kindly, meek,
"It is my wish this maid to seek.
Let me now take my Squire and hound,
And search until the maid be found."

Then seven weeks, with toil and pain,
We travelled wearily the main.

No harbour gave our ship a home,
No land kept off the drifting foam.

But high above the rough sea wave,
We saw a smooth-walled castle brave.

Its gables shone with glass. We laughed,
"Ah many a drink-horn there is quaffed."

Then sailing to its base there fell
A chain that lashed the ocean swell.

I seized it, fearless, hand o'er hand
I climbed upon the frowning land,

And seated on a golden chair,
I found a maiden wondrous fair,

Holding a mirror on her knee,
Her vesture beautiful to see.

I blest her, whose sad voice replied,
"Grief here thy blessing doth betide.

O comer from the sea, thou'lt feel
The heart of stone, the blade of steel"

Though merciless he be, yet know,
His sword can deal my heart no blow.

His love or hatred I despise
If gained the favour of thine eyes.

"The giant's star-white sword alone,"
Said she, "can wring from him a groan.

O hide thee in some place secure,
Or, gallant knight, thy death is sure."

Sir Balva heard the giant roar,
"What wave-thrown stranger climbed our shore?"

Her voice replied, "Now come, nor wait,
My soul, for thee my love is great.

Put thou thy head upon my knee,
I'll sweetly play the harp to thee."

He rested, and a laugh displayed
The white teeth of the blue-eyed maid.

The wild harp-music sweetly rung,
And sweeter still her tuneful tongue.

And on his eyes, by sea winds fanned,
Sleep laid full soon his tranquil hand.

Then took they off his star-white sword
And slew the Castle's Giant Lord.

Thus how the captive maid was found,
Oft heard they of The Table Round.



_SEANN ORAN GAILIC_.
[Note: The Gaelic spelt as by Dewar.]

Do reir beulaithris ann an linn Righ Artair bhi ann an Duneidean,
bha Triath urramach Eirinneach a chuir tigh didean air
a chraig ris an abairte Aill-seid-chuan, agus ghoid e na braighde
riomhfhinne uasal, agus thug e i do'n Dun a thog e air Aill-seid-chuan,
s bha e ga gleidh an sin na braighde. Bha Righ Artair
latha anns a bheinn a sealg, luidh e a' leigeadh a sgitheas dheth,
chaidil e agus bhruadair e air an rimhfhinne a bha ann am braighdeanas,
agus ghabh e toil a cuir saor, ach cha robh fios aige c'aite
an robh i. Ghabh sir Bhalbha os laimh dol g'a h iarraidh na'm
faigheadh e long o'n Righ. Thug an Righ long dh'a, agus sheol
sir Bhalbha gus gun d'fhuair e air thuileamus i, agus thug e
dh'ionnsaidh Righ Airteir i, agus b'ann do'n chuis chaidh an t
oran a leasas a dheanamh.

Turus a chaidh Righ Arstair s a shluagh
Gu tullach na'm buadh, a shealg;
Gun duine mar-ris an Righ
Ach Sir Bhalbha, fo a lion arm.
          Gun duine, &c.

Chunnaic Righ Bhreatun s e na shuain
An aon bhean a b'aillidh snuadh fo'n ghrein
'S b fhearr leis ro na bh'aige a dh'or
An og-bhean bhi aige fein.
          'S b fhearr leis, &c.

Ach b'fhearr leis tuiteam ann an sin
Le comhrag fir, mar bha e fein.
No dol a dh'iarraidh na mna
S gun fhios aige cia an t'aite fo n ghrein.
          No dol a dh'iarraidh, &c.

Thubairt Sir Bhalbha suairce cuin.
'S e mo run dol a dh'iarraidh na mna,
Theid mi fein mo ghille s mo chu
Nar triuir 'g a sireadh gun dail
          Theid mi fein, &c

Seachd seachdainnean le stri
Bha sinn sgith a sinbhal cuain
Gun chala gun talamh gun fhonn
Gun ionad amis an gabhadh an long tamh.
          Gun chala gun, &c.

Chuannacas an iomall a chuain Ghairbh
Caisteal mor min-gheal ghuirm,
Uinneagan gloine air a stuagh
S bu lion-mhor ann cuaich coirn.
          Uninneagan gloine, &c.

Air dhuinn bhi seoladh stigh ri bhun,
Chaidh slabhraidh a chuir a nuas;
S roimh an t slabhraidh cha do ghabh-ar crith
Ach chaidhearurra na m'ruith suas.
          S roimh an t slabhraidh, &c.

Cuanna'cas an ighean eididh og
Air cathair oir na suidhe a steach
Sgathan gloine air a glun,
S bheannaich-eam do a gnuis gheal.
          Sgathan gloine, &c.

Fhir a thainig oirun o'n chuan
S truagh brigh do bheannachadh ann.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ged thigeadh am fear mor na m dhail
Gun iochd gun bhaigh le a chlaidheamh cruaidh,
Air do ghuidh-se a bhean bhlath.
S coingeis leam a ghradh seach fhuath.
          Air do ghuidh-se, &c.

Arm cha deargadh air an thear,
Ach a chlaidheamh run-geal fein.
Agus is fhearr dhuit dol fo-chleith
Do aite air leith tearruinnt' o'n eug.
          Agus is fhearr, &c.

Chaidh Sir Bhalbha fa-chleith
Agus a steach thainig am fear mor
Tha boladh an fhar-bhalaich a steach
Oirrinn iar teachd o thuinn na traigh.
          Tha boladh an, &c.

Anamain, a sheircein, s a ruin
Is mor an gaol a thug mi dhuit,
Cuir thusa do cheann air mo ghluin,
Agus seinnidh mi ciuin duit a chruit.
          Cuir thusa do, &c.

Chuir e a cheann air uchd an ighinn uir,
Bu ghuirme suil, s bu ghile deud,
S ge bu bhinn a sheinneadh i a chruit,
Bu bhinneadh an guth bha teachd o a beul.
          S ge bu bhinn, &c.

Air dhuinn bhi cuairteachadh na'n cuan
Chaidil e suain, na thruim sheamh fann,
S thug iad an claidheamh a chrios
S ghearr iad gun fhios d'dheth an ceann,
          S thug iad an, &c.

Ghoid iad a bhraighdeach s gu leir
S bha a bhean fein fo chumha thruim
Siod agaibh aithris mo sgeul
S mar a leugh iad am bord-cruinn.
          Siod agaibh, &c.

Latha do Righ Arstair s a shluagh
Bhi air Tullach na'm buadh, a shealg.
Gun duine mar-ris an Righ
Ach Bhalbha, fo lion arm.



_DUNOLLY'S DAUGHTER._

Oh, dear to old Dunolly's heart
  His darling daughter seemed,
Yet when she fled, how pitiless
  His bitter curse was deemed.

To death he doomed her lover true,
  And swore his lowly blood
Should stain the land, whose soil would blush
  At wanton womanhood.

But leaves were thick, and woods were green,
  Where summer saw their love,
And none could tell Dunolly where
  Was nesting his wild dove.

Two years had sped, and all unchanged
  Dunolly's mood remained;
When tired with hunting, late at eve
  A forest hut he gained.

A cheerful scene! for hung on trees
  On either side the door
A stag and roe, and salmon there
  Lay strewn the hut before.

There pausing silently he heard
  Light laughter, O well known;
And, looking through the wattled wall
  Stood motionless as stone.

He saw a happy woman lie
  Her true man's form beside;
And laugh as on the bed they tossed
  A smiling child in pride.

No word Dunolly spoke, but went,
  An altered man, and said;
"Go bring them home, for rich are they,
  Love shows them nobly wed."



_THE ARMADA GUN_ [1]

[1] This cannon was recovered in 1740 from the wreck of a vessel of the
Spanish Armada sunk in Tobermory Bay, and is at Inveraray.

An ancient cannon, finely cast.
    Of bronze, all smooth and green with age,
    A by-gone actor on the stage,
Yet fit to take, as in the past
A role in war, and be the last
    Dread argument of kings!

The daisies grew around, and brought
    The homage of young spring to praise
    This stately relic of old days,
When France with Spain for mastery fought;
And Philip over England sought
    To spread the Papal wings.

Initialed with King Francis' name,
    With Gallic lilies sculptured o'er,
    Above the vent the metal bore
A Salamander crowned, in flame;
The massive breech could even claim
    A sheath of lotos bloom.

This goodly weapon, forged where Seine
    By Fontainebleau and Paris flows,
    And many a painted Palace shows
These emblems of the Valois' reign,
For centuries unseen has lain
    Within the sea's dark tomb.

How came it there? A Spanish keel
    One of the Great Armada gay,
    Was blasted in Our Lady's Bay;
One of the Fleet the floods conceal,
Though o'er the waves was wont to peal
    The thunder of their pride.

But how came France's lilies there
    Beneath the flag of red and gold?
    And o'er the ancient gun we told
The story which the legends bear,
How in defeat it bore its share
    And stemmed the Victory's tide.

We thought the winds of hollow sound
    Spoke from its mouth in solemn tone,
    Of great events its life had known,
That thronged, as with the nearly drowned,
To recollection, ere it found
    Beneath the sea a grave.

"'In flame I live, I quench its glow;'
    This motto at the foundry fire
    Was given me by his desire,
The king, whose crest and lilies show
How love and valour could bestow
    Their favour on the brave.

"My form was fashioned in each part
    By him who wrought in gems and gold,
    Whose glory, trumpet-tongued, is told
In fearful wars, in peaceful Art,
Cellini of the ardent heart,
    And Benvenuto named!

"The silver-voiced and laughing crowd
    Of ladies praised his fair design
    And asked if on the German Rhine,
Or English coasts of fog and cloud,
Would soon be heard my challenge loud
    For rights our country claimed?

"To conquer fair Milan I threw
    My shot against the Swiss array
    On Marignano's dreadful day:
On sledges hardy soldiers drew
My weight through snows, where eagles knew
    Alone the Alpine way.

"And warring for the emperor's crown,
   I saw around me fall and die
   The noblest of our chivalry:
When peerless Bayard's high renown
Quenched not his blood, that streaming down
   Fell on me where I lay.

"Pavia felt my iron hail,
   When traitor Bourbon won the fight,
   Yet glad was I no foreign knight
Alone had made our siege to fail,
When wrote our king the dismal tale,
   'Save honour all is lost!'

"The impious victor hurled my fire
   Against the walls of holy Rome,
   But there the devil took him home!
For at the storm my artist sire,
Cellini, felled him, for the ire
   Of God his path had crossed.

"To nobler masters still a slave,
   I felt the fame of Doria mine;
   Saw Venice o'er her channels shine;
Pursued the Moslem on the wave,
And shattered them, when victory gave
   Her palm to Malta's isle.

"When Naples sent her ships to swell
    The swarming armaments that bore
    'Gainst England from each southern shore
In fleets whose numbers none could tell;
I saw how Drake upon us fell,
    How fortune ceased to smile.

"For tempests gathered o'er our track,
    The little English hornets stung,
    My heavy shot against them flung
Passed o'er their barks, so swift to tack,
And every ball they gave us back
    Upon our galleons told.

"Soon drifting o'er the Northern main
    Grey shores unknown were quickly past;
    Our consorts on the rocks were cast,
It was our fate alone to gain
The peaceful haven where Maclaine
    Set fire unto our hold.

I sank: a hundred years past by,
    And diving bells with searchers keen
    For treasure in the wreck were seen.
They took the gold, but let me lie
To sleep another century,
    Then raised and brought me here.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Valois is dead, and Bourbon's Line
    No longer fills my country's throne.
    But death dear France shall never own!
Once more of late her joy was mine,
Once more for her my flames could shine,
    My thunder echo clear.

"For when the tide of battle rolled
    Against the far Crimean shore,
    And France and Britain downward bore
The Russian in his chosen hold,
My last salute of victory told
    For France, as oft of yore!"



_CAVALRY CHARGE--KONIGGRATZ_

We stood, as the helmeted horsemen
  Formed up in the light of the sun;
We knelt, stretching bayonets towards them
  As they charged, ere the battle was won.

I marked their young leader apparelled
  As daintily as for parade,
A cigarette smoking, advancing
  He laughed, as he pointed his blade.

He played with his yellow moustaches,
  And look