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And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;
Then shall thy meteor-glances glow,

And cowering foes shall sink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hands to valor given;

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float, that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,

With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!

J. R. Drake.

CCXXV.

THE WIDOW OF GLEN COE.

Do not lift him from the bracken, leave him lying where he

fell

Better bier ye cannot fashion: none beseems him half so well As the bare and broken heather, and the hard and broken sod,

Whence his angry soul ascended to the judgment-seat of God! Winding-sheet we cannot give him seek no mantle for the dead,

Save the cold and spotless covering showered from heaven upon

his head.

Leave his broadsword as we found it, rent and broken with the

blow,

That, before he died, avenged him on the foremost of the foe. Leave the blood upon the bosom wash not off that sacred stain ;

Let it stiffen on the tartan, let his wounds unclosed remain,
Till the day when he shall show them at the throne of God on

high,

When the murderer and the murdered meet before their Judge's

eye.

Nay ye should not weep, my children! leave it to the faint

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and weak;

Sobs are but a woman's weapons

tears befit a maiden's cheek. Weep not, children of Macdonald! weep not thou, his orphan

heir;

Not in shame, but stainless honor, lies thy slaughtered father there;

Weep not

but when years are over, and thine arm is strong

and sure,

And thy foot is swift and steady on the mountain and the muir,
Let thy heart be hard as iron, and thy wrath as fierce as fire,
Till the hour when vengeance cometh for the race that slew thy
sire!

Till in deep and dark Glenlyon rise a louder shriek of woe,

Than at midnight, from their eyry, scared the eagles of Glencoe; Louder than the screams that mingled with the howling of the

blast,

When the murderers' steel was clashing, and the fires were rising

fast;

When thy noble father bounded to the rescue of his men,

And the slogan of our kindred pealed throughout the startled

glen ;

When the herd of frantic women stumbled through the midnight

snow,

With their fathers' houses blazing, and their dearest dead below! Oh, the horror of the tempest, as the flashing drift was blown, Crimsoned with the conflagration, and the roofs went thundering down!

Oh, the prayers, the prayers and curses, that together winged their flight

From the maddened hearts of many, through that long and woful

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Till the fires began to dwindle, and the shots grew faint and few,
And we heard the foeman's challenge only in a far halloo :

Till the silence once more settled o'er the gorges of the glen,
Broken only by the Cona plunging through its naked den.
Slowly from the mountain summit was the drifting veil with-
drawn,

And the ghastly valley glimmered in the gray December dawn.
Better had the morning never dawned upon our dark despair!
Black amidst the common whiteness rose the spectral ruins there:
But the sight of these was nothing more than wrings the wild
dove's breast,

When she searches for her offspring round the relics of her nest. For in many a spot the tartan peered above the wintry heap, Marking where a dead Macdonald lay within his frozen sleep. Tremblingly we scooped the covering from each kindred victim's head,

And the living lips were burning on the cold ones of the dead. And I left them with their dearest-dearest charge had every

one

Left the maiden with her lover, left the mother with her son.
I alone of all was mateless far more wretched I than they,
For the snow would not discover where my lord and husband

lay.

But I wandered up the valley, till I found him lying low, With the gash upon his bosom, and the frown upon his brow Till I found him lying murdered where he wooed me long ago.

Woman's weakness shall not shame me

tears to shed?

why should I have

Could I rain them down like water, O my hero! on thy head Could the cry of lamentation wake thee from thy silent sleep,

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Could it set thy heart a-throbbing, it were mine to wail and

weep!

But I will not waste my sorrow, lest the Campbell women say
That the daughters of Clanranald are as weak and frail as they.
I had wept thee, hadst thou fallen, like our fathers, on thy shield,
When a host of English foemen camped upon a Scottish field.
I had mourned thee, hadst thou perished with the foremost of his

name,

When the valiant and the noble died around the dauntless

Græme!

But I will not wrong thee, husband, with my unavailing cries, Whilst thy cold and mangled body, stricken by the traitor, lies; Whilst he counts the gold and glory that this hideous night has

won,

And his heart is big with triumph at the murder he has done. Other eyes than mine shall glisten, other hearts be rent in twain, Ere the heath-bells on thy hillock wither in the autumn rain. Then I'll seek thee where thou sleepest, and I'll veil my weary

head,

Praying for a place beside thee, dearer than my bridal-bed:
And I'll give thee tears, my husband, if the tears remain to me,
When the widows of the foeman cry the coronach for thee!

W. E. Aytoun.

CCXXVI.

BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

NOT

OT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.'

We buried him darkly, at dead of night,.
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;

But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow,
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him, -
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone But we left him alone with his glory.

C. Wolfe.

CCXXVII.

THE MANIAC.

TAY, jailer, stay, and hear my woe!

STAY,

She is not mad who kneels to thee,
For what I'm now, too well I know,
And what I was, and what should be.
I'll rave no more in proud despair;
My language shall be mild, though sad:
But yet I firmly, truly swear,

I am not mad, I am not mad.

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