RHYMES OF THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS.

I.

THE HAUNTED TARN ON THE MOOR.

THERE lies a lonely mountain tarn
On Albyn's wildest ground,
Scarce known but to the heather bee
On homeward errand bound,
Or to the wearied shepherd boy
Who seeks his charge around.
It is a solitary moor,

Girt by a giant band;

Schihallion throned, like Jove on high,
With his thunders in his hand;
While a hundred lesser mighty ones
In glory 'neath him stand.

From either side, below the tarn,
Two vales together blend;

Loch Tummel and Loch Rannoch stretch
Their arms from end to end;
Down to their margins from the steep

The yellow birches bend.

Hamlets and wooded knolls are there,
And fields of plumy grain,
And troops of happy villagers

Work busy in the plain;

But tillage on this mountain moor
Were all bestowed in vain.

No plough has torn its clotted moss,
No foliage waves in sight,
Save one dark clump of ragged pines
On a small barren height —
A fearful place it were to pass
On a gusty winter night!

A tale is told of battle fought

"Twixt clans a feud that bare:
The Robertsons, by Stewarts chased
From Rannoch's forest lair,
Turned by the lonely tarn at bay,
And took them unaware.

Then had the Robertsons revenge,
Their foes were rash and few;
The waters gurgled red with blood
Their mossy basin through,
Nor was a Stewart left to tell
What hand his clansmen slew.

Down in the vale beside her fire,
The wife of one there slain
Sang to the babe was at her breast
That could not sleep for pain;
When, hush! a sound is at her door
Of neither wind nor rain.

Nor sound of foot, though shape of man,
Pale, shadowy, blood-defiled,

Withouten latch or turn of hinge

Stood by her and her child,

Then glided back with hand outstretch'd

Towards the gloomy wild.

She sprang and call'd her sister dear,

66

A maiden fresh and young,

I pray thee tend my little child,
I shall be back ere long;

I fear me lest the Robertsons
Have done my husband wrong."

She kissed the babe whose downy limbs

Lay folded in her breast,

She gave it to her sister's charge

From its maternal nest;

Then, with her plaid about her clasp'd,
Unto the moorland press'd.

The shadowy wraith beside her stood
Soon as she closed the door,
And, as she pass'd by kirk and wood,
Still flitted on before,

Guiding her steps across the burn,
Up, up unto the moor.

The moon was hid in weeds of white,
The night was damp and cold,
The wanderer stumbled in the moss,
Bewildered on the wold,

Till suddenly the clouds were rent,
The tarn before her roll'd.

The heather with strange burdens swell'd—

On every tuft a corse,

On every stunted juniper,

On every faded gorse;

The woman sank, and on her lids
Her weak hands press'd with force.
Again she was constrain'd to gaze,—
Lo! on each dead man's brow,
A tongue of flame burn'd steadily,
Though there was breeze enow
To shake the pines that overhead
Waved black, funereal bough.
And, dancing on the sullen loch,
A ghostly troop there went,
Whose airy figures floated high
On the thin element;

And grimly at each other's forms

Their mock claymores they bent.

One brush'd so near, she turn'd her gaze,

She stood transfix'd to stone;

It was the face of him she sought,
Close pressing on her own,
And fell upon her straining ear
One deep and awful moan.

She started back with madden'd shriek-
Shriek echoed by the dead;

She gave a hurried pray'r to heaven,
Then o'er the moorland fled;
Until she reach'd the village kirk,
She dared not turn her head.

Not long her thread of life endured,
Not long her infant hung
Upon that bosom terror-dried,
That mouth no more that sung.

VOL. XXXI. NO. CLXXXIV.

HH

She died, and ever since the tarn
Is shunn'd by old and young.
For still the gusty breezes raise
The phantom's anguish'd cry,
Still on the water's brim they flit
When winter storms are high;

Still flames, nor wind nor wave can quench,
Are ever burning nigh.

Nay, if you doubt it, wend your way
In twilight's deepening blue,
And watch beneath those spectral pines

One stormy midnight through;
And, if your courage fail you not,
You shall behold them too!

II.

CULLODEN.

THERE was tempest on the waters, there was darkness on the earth,
When a single Danish schooner struggled up the Moray Firth;
Far and grim the Ross-shire mountains loom'd unfriendly on its track,
Shriek'd the wind along their gorges like a sufferer on the rack,
And the utmost deeps were shaken by the stunning thunder-peal,-
"Twas a sturdy hand, I trow ye, that was needed at the wheel!

Though the billows flew about them till the mast was hid in spray,
Though the timbers strain'd beneath them, still they bore upon their way
Till they reached a fisher village, where the vessel they could moor;
Every head was on its pillow when they landed on the shore,
And a man of noble presence bade the crew, "Wait here for me;
I will come back in the morning, when the sun has left the sea."
He was yet in manly vigour, though his lips were ashen white;
On his brow were early furrows, in his eyes a clouded light;
Firm his step withal, and hasty, through the blinding mist so sure,
That he found himself by dawning on a wide and barren muir,
Only marked by dykes and heather, bare alike of house and wood,
But he knew the purple ridges-'twas Culloden where he stood!
He had known it well aforetime, not as now, so drear and quiet;
Then astir with battle's horror, drunken with destruction's riot;
Now so peaceful and unconscious, that the orphan'd and exiled
Was unmann'd to see its calmness, weeping weakly as a child:
And a thought arose of madness, and his hand was on his sword,
But he crush'd the coward impulse, and he spoke the bitter word :
"I am here, O sons of Scotland, ye who perish'd for your king,
In the misty wreaths before me I can see your tartans swing;
I can hear your slogan, comrades, who to Saxon never knelt,—
Oh, that I had died among ye with the fortunes of the Celt!
"There he rode, our princely warrior, and his features wore the same
Pallid shape of deep foreboding as the First one of his name,
Ay, as gloomy was his sunset, though no Scot his life betray'd,
Better plunge in bloody glory, than go down in shame and shade.
"Stormy hills, did ye protect him, that o'erlook Culloden's plain,
Dabbled with the heather blossoms, red as life-drops of the slain?
Did ye hide your hunted children from the vengeance of the foe,
Did ye rally back the flying for one last despairing blow?
No! the Saxon holds dominion, and the humbled clans obey,
And their bones must rot in exile who disdain usurpers' sway.

"He is sunk in wine's oblivion, for whom Highland blood was shed,
Him the kerne most wretched sheltered with a price upon his head;
Beaten down like hounds by whipping, crouch we from our master's sight;
And I tread my native mountains like a robber in the night;
Spite of tempest, spite of danger, hostile man and hostile sca,
Gory field of sad Culloden, I have come to look on thee!"

So he pluck'd a tuft of heather that was blooming at his foot,
That was nourish'd by dead kinsmen and their bones were at its root;
With a sigh he took the blossom, striving quickly to the strand,
Where the Danish crew awaited 'mong a curious fisher band;
Brief his parley, swift his sailing with the tide, and ne'er again
Saw the Moray Firth that stranger or the schooner of the Dane.

III.

THE BALLAD OF EVAN DHU.

As swarming bees upon the wing,
The people crowded o'er the hill;
And now the bell had ceased to ring,
The village kirk had ceased to fill.

The mountain burn that washed the graves
Murmured a hymn while running by ;
And with the solemn chime of waves
A hundred voices clomb the sky.

The sunbeams through the open door
Came streaming in across the place,
And, messengers of gladness, bore
Heaven's radiance to each humble face.

On upturn'd foreheads, sage and good,
They lingered with seraphic smile,
When in the darken'd doorway stood
A stranger man, and paused awhile.

His raiment had a foreign air,

His brow was burnt by foreign skies
And there was fierceness in his stare
That suited ill Devotion's eyes.

He looked around with changing cheek,
Then hurried to the nearest pew,
As one whose heart, too full to speak,

;

Those time-worn stairs and benches knew.

The preacher eyed him as he went,
Remembrance on his features shone;
His pleading waxed more eloquent,
A warmer pity fired his tone.

"Why will ye die who know full well
Your sentence just, our warning true?
The Lord our God is terrible,

And yet the Lord hath bled for you!

"Whate'er your weakness, e'er your guilt,
His fountains wash the blackest crime;
Ah! not in vain his blood was spilt!
Turn, sinners, in th' Accepted Time!"