THE LORD OF THE ISLES. CANTO FIRST. AUTUMN departs+but still his mantle's fold And yet some tints of summer splendour tell When the broad sun sinks down on Ettrick's western fell. Autumn departs-from Gala's fields no more Come rural sounds our kindred banks to cheer; Blent with the stream, and gale that wafts it o'er, No more the distant reaper's mirth we hear. The last blithe shout hath died upon our ear, And harvest-home hath hushed the clanging wain, On the waste hill no forms of life appear, Save where, sad laggard of the autumnal train, Some age-struck wanderer gleans few ears of scattered grain. Deem'st thou these saddened scenes have pleasure still, Lovest thou through Autumn's fading realms to stray, To see the heath-flower withered on the hill, To mark the last bright tints the mountain stain, On the waste fields to trace the gleaner's way, And moralize on mortal joy and pain ?— O! if such scenes thou lovest, scorn not the minstrel strain ! No! do not scorn, although its hoarser note Scarce with the cushat's homely song can vie, Though faint its beauties as the tints remote That gleam through mist in autumn's evening sky, And few as leaves that tremble, sear and dry, When wild November hath his bugle wound; Nor mock my toil-a lonely gleaner I, 1 Through fields time-wasted, on sad inquest bound, Where happier bards of yore have richer harvest found. So shalt thou list, and haply not unmoved, For, when on Coolin's hills the lights decay, With such the Seer of Skye the eve beguiles, 'Tis known amid the pathless wastes of Reay, In Harries known, and in Ionia's piles, Where rest from mortal coil the Mighty of the Isles. I. "WAKE, Maid of Lorn!" the Minstrels sung. And the dark seas, thy towers that lave, As mid the tuneful choir to keep Lulled were the winds on Inninmore, And green Loch-Alline's woodland shore, |