CANTO THIRD

THE GATHERING

I.

TIME rolls his ceaseless course.

The race of yore,

Who danced our infancy upon their knee,

And told our marvelling boyhood legends store
Of their strange ventures happed by land or

sea,

How are they blotted from the things that be! 5 How few, all weak and withered of their force, Wait on the verge of dark eternity,

Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse, To sweep them from our sight! Time rolls his ceaseless course.

Yet live there still who can remember well,

How, when a mountain chief his bugle blew,
Both field and forest, dingle, cliff, and dell,

And solitary heath, the signal knew;
And fast the faithful clan around him drew,
What time the warning note was keenly wound,
What time aloft their kindred banner flew,

4. happed, chanced.

While clamorous war-pipes yelled the gathering

sound,

And while the Fiery Cross glanced, like a meteor,

round.

II.

The Summer dawn's reflected hue
To purple changed Loch Katrine blue;
Mildly and soft the western breeze
Just kissed the lake, just stirred the trees,
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy,
Trembled but dimpled not for joy:
The mountain shadows on her breast

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18. Fiery Cross. "When a chieftain designed to summon his clan, upon any sudden or important emergency, he slew a goat, and making a cross of any light wood, seared its extremities in the fire, and extinguished them in the blood of the animal. This was called the Fiery Cross, also Cream Tarigh, or the Cross of Shame, because disobedience to what the symbol implied inferred infamy. It was delivered to a swift and trusty messenger, who ran full speed with it to the next hamlet, where he presented it to the principal person, with a single word, implying the place of rendezvous. He who received the symbol was bound to send it forward, with equal dispatch, to the next village; and thus it passed with incredible celerity through all the district which owed allegiance to the chief, and also among his allies and neighbors, if the danger was common to them. At sight of the Fiery Cross, every man, from sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best arms and accoutrements, to the place of rendezvous. He who failed to appear, suffered the extremities of fire and sword, which were emblematically denounced to the disobedient by the bloody and burnt marks upon this warlike signal. During the civil war of 1745-1746, the Fiery Cross often made its circuit; and upon one occasion it passed through the whole district of Breadalbane, a tract of thirty-two miles, in three hours."-Scott.

Were neither broken nor at rest;
In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the light

Her chalice reared of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,

Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn;
The gray mist left the mountain-side,

The torrent showed its glistening pride;
Invisible in flecked sky

The lark sent down her revelry;

The blackbird and the speckled thrush
Good-morrow gave from brake and bush;
In answer cooed 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
Was prompt the ritual to prepare,
With deep and deathful meaning fraught;

30. chalice, cup.

39. cushat dove, ring dove.

46. impatient blade. By a kind of personification, the quality of impatience, which belongs to the owner of the blade, is attributed to the blade itself.

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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IV.

A heap of withered boughs was piled,
Of 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 grizzled beard and matted hair
Obscured a visage of despair;

His naked arms and legs, seamed o'er,
The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and face,

62. rowan. The rowan tree is the mountain ash; called also roan tree, and in Sc. roun tree.

71. That monk, etc. "The state of religion in the Middle Ages afforded considerable facilities for those whose mode of life excluded them from regular worship, to secure, neverthe less, the ghostly assistance of confessors, perfectly willing to adapt the nature of their doctrine to the necessities and peculiar

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 hardened heart and eye might brook
On human sacrifice to look;

And much, 't was said, of heathen lore

Mixed in the charms he muttered o'er.
The hallowed creed gave only worse
And deadlier emphasis of curse.

No peasant sought that Hermit's prayer,
His cave the pilgrim shunned with care;
The eager huntsman knew his bound,
And in mid chase called off his hound;
Or if, in lonely glen or strath,
The desert-dweller met his path,

He prayed, and signed the cross between,
While terror took devotion's mien.

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V.

Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.
His mother watched a midnight fold,
Built deep within a dreary glen,
Where scattered lay the bones of men

In some forgotten battle slain,

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circumstances of their flock. Robin Hood, it is well known,

had his celebrated domestic chaplain, Friar Tuck." - Scott.

74. Benharrow, a mountain near Loch Lomond.

76. Druid, a priest of the Celtic inhabitants of Britain. 87. strath, a valley through which a river runs.