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Good-morrow gave from brake and bush;
In answer coo'd the cushat dove
Her notes of peace, and rest, and love.

III.

No thought of peace, no thought of rest,
Assuaged the storm in Roderick's breast.
With sheathed broadsword in his hand,
Abrupt he paced the islet strand,
And eyed the rising sun, and laid
His hand on his impatient blade.
Beneath a rock, his vassals' care 2
Was prompt the ritual to prepare,
With deep and deathful meaning fraught;
For such Antiquity had taught

Was preface meet, ere yet abroad

The Cross of Fire should take its road.
The shrinking band stood oft aghast
At the impatient glance he cast;
Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As, from the cliffs of Benvenue,
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And high in middle heaven, reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
Silenced the warblers of the brake.

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Are clothed with early blossoms; through the grass

The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills

1

Of summer birds sing welcome as ye pass. -Childe Harold.

2 MS.

Hard by, his vassals' early care

The mystic ritual prepare.

IV.

A heap of wither'd boughs was piled,
Df juniper and rowan wild,

Mingled with shivers from the oak,
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.
Brian, the Hermit, by it stood,
Barefooted, in his frock and hood
His grisled beard and matted hair
Obscured a visage of despair;

His naked arms and legs, seam'd o'er,
The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and face,1
The impending danger of his race
Had drawn from deepest solitude,
Far in Benharrow's bosom rude.
Not his the mien of Christian priest,
But Druid's, from the grave released.
Whose harden'd heart and eye might brock
On human sacrifice to look ;

And much, 'twas said, of heathen lore
Mix'd in the charms he mutter'd o'er
The hallow'd creed gave only worse 2
And deadlier emphasis of curse;
No peasant sought that hermit's prayer,
His cave the pilgrim shunn'd with care,
The eager huntsman knew his bound,
And in mid chase call'd off his hound;
Or if, in lonely glen or strath,

1 See Appendix, Note G.

2 MS.- While the bless'd creed gave only worse.

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Who meets them at the churchyard gate? The messenger of fear and fate!

The desert-dweller met his path,

He pray'd, and sign'd the cross between,
While terror took devotion's mien. 1

V.

Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.2
His mother watch'd a midnight fold,
Built deep within a dreary glen,

1 MS.-He pray'd with many a cross between, And terror took devotion's mien.

2 The legend which follows is not of the author's invention. It is possible he may differ from modern critics, in supposing that the records of human superstition, if peculiar to, and characteristic of, the country in which the scene is laid, are a legitimate subject of poetry. He gives, however, a ready assent to the narrower proposition which condemns all attempts of an irregular and disordered fancy to excite terror, by accumulating a train of fantastic and incoherent horrors, whether borrowed from all countries, and patched upon a narrative belonging to one which knew them not, or derived from the author's own imagination. In the present case, therefore, I appeal to the record which I have transcribed, with the variation of a very few words, from the geographical collections made by the Laird of Macfarlane. I know not whether it be necessary to remark, that the miscellaneous concourse of youths and maidens on the night and on the spot where the miracle is said to have taken place, might, even in a credulous age, have somewhat diminished the wonder which accompanied the conception of Gilli-DoirMagrevollich.

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'There is bot two myles from Inverloghie, the church of Kilmalee, in Loghyeld. In ancient tymes there was ane church builded upon ane hill, which was above this church,

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