"_Glencoe_--ay, well the word may stir, The stoutest heart with fear, Or burn with monstrous shame the face Of man from year to year, As long as Scotland's girdling rocks The roar of seas shall hear.
"Enough--Glenlyon redly earn'd The curse he won that night, When rising from the social hearth He gave the word to smite, And all was shriek and helplessness, And massacre and flight.
"And such a flight!--O, outraged Heaven, How could'st thou, since, have smiled? A fathom deep the frozen snow Lay horrid on the wild, Where fled to perish youth and age, And wife and feeble child.
"My couch is soft--yet dreams will still Convert that couch to snow, And in my slumbers shot and shout Are ringing from Glencoe." That stalwart man arose and paced The chamber to and fro, While to his brow the sweat-drop sprung Like one in mortal throe.
"Glenlyon died, be sure, as die All desperate men of blood, And from my sire (his son) our lands Departed sod by sod, Till the sole wealth bequeathed me was A mother fearing God.
"She rear'd me in that holy fear, In stainless honour's love, And from the past she warned me, Whate'er my fate should prove, To shrink from bloodshed as a sin. All human sins above.
"I kept the precept;--by the sword Compell'd to win me bread, A soldier's life of storm and strife For forty years I led, Yet ne'er by this reluctant arm Has friend or foeman bled.
"But still I felt Glencoe's dark curse My head suspended o'er, --Look, this reluctant hand, for all, Is red with human gore!" Again that white-lipp'd man arose And strode the echoing floor.
"A prosperous course through life was mine On rampart, field, and wave, Though more my warrior skill than deeds, Command and fortune gave. Years roll'd away, and I prepared To drop the weary glaive.
"'Twas when beyond th' Atlantic foam, To check encroaching France, Our war spread wide, and, on his tide, In many a martial glance, St Lawrence saw grey Albyn's plumes And Highland pennons dance.
"E'en while I waited for the Chief, By whom relieved at last, Heart-young, though time-worn, I was free To hail my country's blast-- That on a sentry, absent found, The doom of death was pass'd.
"POOR RONALD BLAIR! a fleeter foot Ne'er track'd through Morvern moss The wind-hoof'd deer; nor swimmer's arm More wide the surge could toss Than his, for whom dishonour's hand Now dug the griesly fosse.