Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveillé.
Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen,

How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveillé."

XXXIII.

The hall was clear'd-the stranger's bed

Was there of mountain heather spread,
Where oft a hundred guests had lain,
And dream'd their forest sports again.
But vainly did the heath-flower shed
Its moorland fragrance round his head;
Not Ellen's spell had lull'd to rest
The fever of his troubled breast.
In broken dream the image rose
Of varied perils, pains and woes:
His steed now flounders in the brake,
Now sinks his barge upon the lake;
Now leader of a broken host,

His standard falls, his honour's lost. Then, from my couch may heavenly might

Chase that worse phantom of the night :

Again return'd the scenes of youth,
Of confident undoubting truth;
Again his soul he interchanged
With friends whose hearts were long
estranged.

They come, in dim procession led,
The cold, the faithless, and the dead;
As warm each hand, each brow as gay,
As if they parted yesterday.
And doubt distracts him at the view,
O were his senses false or true?
Dream'd he of death, or broken vow,
Or is it all a vision now?

Slowly enlarged to giant size,
With darken'd cheek and threatening
eyes,

The grisly visage, stern and hoar,
To Ellen still a likeness bore.-
He woke, and panting with affright,
Recall'd the vision of the night.
The hearth's decaying brands, were red,
And deep and dusky lustre shed,
Half showing, half concealing, all
The uncouth trophies of the hall.
Mid those the stranger fix'd his eye,
Where that huge falchion hung on n'gb,
And thoughts on thoughts, a countiess
throng,

Rush'd, chasing countless thoughts along,

Until, the giddy whirl to cure, He rose, and sought the moonshine pure.

66

Why is it, at each turn I trace Some memory of that exiled race? Can I not mountain-maiden spy, Can I not view a Highland brand, But she must bear the Douglas eye? But it must match the Douglas hand? Can I not frame a fever'd dream, But still the Douglas is the theme? I'll dream no more-by manly mind Not even in sleep is will resign'd. My midnight orisons said o'er, I'll turn to rest, and dream no more." His midnight orisons he told, A prayer with every bead of gold, Consign'd to heaven his cares and woes And sunk in undisturb'd repose; Until the heath-cock shrilly crew. And morning dawn'd on Benvenue

'Tis morning prompts the linnet's blithest lay,

All Nature's children feel the matin spring

Of life reviving, with reviving day; And while yon little bark glides down the bay,

Wafting the stranger on his way again,

Morn's genial influence roused a minstrel

The care that soothes a wanderer's woo;
Remember then thy hap ere while,
A stranger in the lonely isle.

"Or if on life's uncertain main
If faithful, wise, and brave in vain,
Mishap shall mar thy sail;
Woe, want, and exile thou sustain
Beneath the fickle gale;

Waste not a sigh on fortune changed,
On thankless courts, or friends estranged,
But come where kindred worth shall
smile,

To greet thee in the lonely isle."

IV.

As died the sounds upon the tide,
The shallop reach'd the mainland side,
And ere his onward way he took,
The stranger cast a lingering look,
Where easily his eye might reach
The Harper on the islet beach,
Reclined against a blighted tree,
As wasted, grey, and worn as he.
To minstrel meditation given,

His reverend brow was raised to heaven,
As from the rising sun to claim
A sparkle of inspiring flame.
His hand, reclined upon the wire,
Seem'd watching the awakening fire:
So still he sate, as those who wait
Till judgment speak the doom of fate;
So still, as if no breeze might dare
To lift one lock of hoary hair;
So still, as life itself were fled,
In the last sound his harp had sped.

Upon a rock with lichens wild,

Beside him Ellen sate and smiled.Smiled she to see the stately drake While her vex'd spaniel, from the beach, Lead forth his fleet upon the lake, Bay'd at the prize beyond his reach? Then tell me, then, the maid who knows,

Why deepen'd on her cheek the rose ?-
Forgive, forgive, Fidelity!

Perchance the maiden smiled to see
Yon parting lingerer wave adieu,
And stop and turn to wave anew;
And, lovely ladies, ere your ire
Condemn the heroine of my lyre,
Show me the fair would scorn to spy,
And prize such conquest of her eyel

VI.

While yet he loiter'd on the spot,
It seem'd as Ellen mark'd him not;
But when he turn'd him to the glade,
One courteous parting sign she made;
And after, oft the knight would say,
That not when prize of festal day
Was dealt him by the brightest fair,
Who e'er wore jewel in her hair,
So highly did his bosom swell,
As at that simple mute farewell.
Now with a trusty mountain-guide,
And his dark stag-hounds by his side,
He parts-the maid, unconscious still,
Watch'd him wind slowly round the
hill:

But when his stately form was hid,
The guardian in her bosom chid-
"Thy Malcolm ! vain and selfish

And the proud march which victors tread,

Sinks in the wailing for the dead.
O well for me, if mine alone
That dirge's deep prophetic tone!
If, as my tuneful fathers said,
This harp, which erst Saint Modan
sway'd,

Can thus its master's fate foretell,
Then welcome be the minstrel's knell!

VIII.

"But ah! dear lady, thus it sigh'd
The eve thy sainted mother died;
And such the sounds which, while I
strove

To wake a lay of war or love,
Came marring all the festal mirth,
Appalling me who gave them birth,
And, disobedient to my call,
Wail'd loud through Bothwell's banner'd
hall,

Ere Douglasses, to ruin driven,
Were exiled from their native heaven.-
Oh! if yet worse mishap and woe,
My master's house must undergo,
Or aught but weal to Ellen fair,
Brood in these accents of despair,
No future bard, sad Harp! shall fling
Triumph or rapture from thy string;
One short, one final strain shall flow,
Fraught with unutterable woe,
Then shiver'd shall thy fragments lie,
Thy master cast him down and die!"

IX.

Soothing she answer'd him, "Assuage,
Mine honour'd friend, the fears of age;
All melodies to thee are known,
That harp has rung, or pipe has blown,
In Lowland vale or Highland glen,
From Tweed to Spey-what marvel,
then,

At times, unbidden notes should rise,
Confusedly bound in memory's ties,
Entangling, as they rush along,
The war-march with the funeral song!-
Small ground is now for boding fear;
Obscure, but safe, we rest us here.
My sire, in native virtue great,
Resigning lordship, lands, and state,
Not then to fortune more resign'd,
Than yonder oak might give the wind;
The graceful foliage storms may reave,
The noble stem they cannot grieve.

For me," she stoop'd, and, looking round,

Pluck'd a blue hare-bell from the ground,

"For me, whose memory scarce conveys
An image of more splendid days,
This little flower that loves the lea,
May well my simple emblem be;
It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as rose
That in the king's own garden grows;
And when I place it in my hair,
Allan, a bard is bound to swear
He ne'er saw coronet so fair."
Then playfully the chaplet wild

XII.

The ancient bard his glee repress'd:
Ill hast thou chosen theme for jest!
For who, through all this western wild,
Named Black Sir Roderick e'er, and
smiled!

In Holy-Rood a knight he slew;
I saw, when back the dirk he drew,
Courtiers give place before the stride
Of the undaunted homicide;

And since, though outlaw'd, hath his hand

Full sternly kept his mountain land. Who else dared give-ah! woe the day,

smiled.

X.

Her smile, her speech, with winning sway,

Wiled the old harper's mood away.
With such a look as hermits throw,
When angels stoop to sooth their woe,
He gazed, till fond regret and pride
Thrill'd to a tear, then thus replied:
"Loveliest and best! thou little know'st
The rank, the honours, thou hast lost!
O might I live to see thee grace,
In Scotland's court, thy birthright
place.

To see my favourite's step advance,
The lightest in the courtly dance,
The cause of every gallant's sigh,
And leading star of every eye,
And theme of every minstrel's art,
The Lady of the Bleeding Heart!"

XI.

"Fair dreams are these," the maiden cried,

The Douglas, like a stricken deer,
Disown'd by every noble peer,
Even the rude refuge we have here?
Alas, this wild marauding Chief
Alone might hazard our relief,
And now thy maiden charms expand,
Looks for his guerdon in thy hand;
Full soon may dispensation sought,
To back his suit, from Rome be
brought.

Then, though an exile on the hill,
Thy father, as the Douglas, still
Be held in reverence and fear;
And though to Roderick thou'rt se-
dear,

That thou mightst guide with silker thread,

Slave of thy will, this chieftain dread; Yet, O loved maid, thy mirth refrain! Thy hand is on a lion's mane."

'Minstrel," the maid replied, and high Her father's soul glanced from her eye,

In courtly dance than blithe strathspey,
Nor half so pleased mine ear incline
To royal minstrel's lay as thine.
And then for suitors proud and high,
To bend before my conquering eye,-
Thou, flattering bard! thyself wilt say,
That grim Sir Roderick owns its sway.
The Saxon scourge, Clan-Alpine's pride,
The terror of Loch Lomond's side,
Would, at my suit, thou know'st, delay
A Lennox foray-for a day."-

All that a mother could bestow,
To Lady Margaret's care I owe,
Since first an orphan in the wild
She sorrow'd o'er her sister's child;
To her brave chieftain son, from ire
Of Scotland's king who shrouds my
sire,

A deeper, holier debt is owed;
And, could I pay it with my blood,
Allan! Sir Roderick should command.
My blood, my life, but not my hand.
Rather will Ellen Douglas dwell
A votaress in Maronnan's cell;
Rather through realms beyond the sea,
Seeking the world's cold charity,

wave;

And generous-save vindictive mood,
Or jealous transport, chafe his blood:
I grant him true to friendly band,
As his claymore is to his hand;
But O! that very blade of steel
More mercy for a foe would feel;
I grant him liberal, to fling

Among his clan the wealth they bring, When back by lake and glen they wind,

And in the Lowland leave behind,
Where once some pleasant hamlet stood,
A mass of ashes slaked with blood.
The hand that for my father fought,
I honour, as his daughter ought;
But can I clasp it reeking red,
From peasants slaughter'd in their

shed?

No! wildly while his virtues gleam,
They make his passions darker seem,
And flash along his spirit high,
Like lightning o'er the midnight sky.
While yet a child, and children

know,

15

Thy father's battle-brand, of yore
For Tine-man forged by fairy lore,
What time he leagued, no longer foes,
His Border spears with Hotspur's bows,
Did, self-unscabbarded, foreshow
The footstep of a secret foe.
If courtly spy hath harbour'd here,
What may we for the Douglas fear?
What for this island, deem'd of old
Clan-Alpine's last and surest hold?
If neither spy or foe, I pray
What yet may jealous Roderick say?
-Nay, wave not thy disdainful head,
Bethink thee of the discord dread
That kindled, when at Beltane game
Thou ledst the dance with Malcolm
Græme;

Still, though thy sire the peace renew'd, Smoulders in Roderick's breast the feud;

Beware!-But hark, what sounds are these?

My dull ears catch no faltering breeze,
No weeping birch, nor aspens wake,
Nor breath is dimpling in the lake,
Still is the canna's hoary beard,
Yet by my minstrel faith, I heard-
And hark again! some pipe of war
Sends the bold pibroch from afar."

XVI.

Far up the lengthen'd lake were spied
Four darkening specks upon the tide,
That, slow enlarging on the view,
Four mann'd and masted barges grew,
And, bearing downwards from Glengyle,
Steer'd full upon the lonely isle;
The point of Brianchoil they pass'd,
And, to the windward as they cast,
Against the sun they gave to shine
The bold Sir Roderick's banner'd Pine.
Nearer and nearer as they bear,
Spear, pikes, and axes flash in air.
Now might you see the tartans brave,
And plaids and plumage dance and