-What woful accents load the gale?
The funeral yell, the female wail!1
A gallant hunter's sport is o'er,
A valiant warrior fights no more.
Who, in the battle or the chase,

At Roderick's side shall fill his place!-
Within the hall, where torches' ray
Supplies the excluded beams of day,
Lies Duncan on his lowly bier,

And o'er him streams his widow's tear.
His stripling son stands mournful by,
His youngest weeps, but knows not why!
The village maids and matrons round

The dismal coronach resound.2

XVI.

Coronach.

He is gone on the mountain,

He is lost to the forest,

Like a summer-dried fountain,

When our need was the sorest.

The font, reappearing,

From the rain-drops shall borrow,

But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow!

1 MS.-'Tis woman's scream, 'tis childhood's wail.

2 The Coronach of the Highlanders, like the Ulalatus of the Romans and the Ululoo of the Irish, was a wild expression of lamentation, poured forth by the mourners over the body of a departed friend. When the words

T

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,

But the voice of the weeper

Wails manhood and glory.

The autumn winds rushing

Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing,

When blighting was nearest.

of it were articulate, they expressed the praises of the deceased, and the loss the clan would sustain by his death. The following is a lamentation of this kind, literally translated from the Gaelic, to some of the ideas of which the text stands indebted. The tune is so popular, that it has since become the war-march, or Gathering of the clan.

Coronach on Sir Lauchlaa, Chief of Alarlean.

"Which of all the Senachies

Can trace thy line from the root up to Paradise,

But Macvuirih, the son of Fergus?

No sooner had thine ancient stately tree

Taken firm root in Albion,

Than one of thy forefathers fell at Harlaw.

"I was then we lost a chief of deathless name.

""Tis no base weed-no planted tree,

Nor a seedling of last Autumn;

Nor a sapling planted at Beltain;1

Wide, wide around were spread its lofty branches

But the topmost bough is lowly laid!

Thou hast forsaken us before Sawine.?

"Thy dwelling is the winter house;—

Loud, sad, sad, and mighty is thy death-song!

Oh! courteous champion of Montrose!

Oh! stately warrior of the Celtic Isles!

Thou shalt buckle thy harness on no more!"

The coronach has for some years past been superseded at funerals by the use of the bagpipe; and that also is, like many other Highland peculiarities, falling into disuse, unless in remote districts.

1 Bell's fire, or Whitsunday.

2 Hallowe'en.

Fleet foot on the correi,1

Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,

How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,

Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and for ever!?

3

XVII.

See Stumah, who, the bier beside,
His master's corpse with wonder eyed,
Poor Stumah! whom his least halloo
Could send like lightning o'er the dew.
Bristles his crest, and points his ears,
As if some stranger step he hears.
'Tis not a mourner's muffled tread,
Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead,
But headlong haste, or deadly fear,
Urge the precipitate career.

1 Or corri. The hollow side of the hill, where game usually lies.

2 Mr. Scott is such a master of versification, that the most complicated metre does not, for an instant, arrest the progress of his imagination; its difficulties usually operate as a salutary excitement to his attention, and not unfrequently suggest to him new and unexpected graces of expression. If a careless rhyme, or an ill-constructed phrase occasionally escape him amidst the irregular torrent of his stanza, the blemish is often imperceptible by the hurried eye of the reader; but when the short lines are yoked in pairs, any dissonance in the jingle, or interruption of the construction, cannot fail to give offence. We learn from Horace, that in the course of a long work, a poet may legitimately indulge in a momentary slumber; but we do not wish to hear him snore.-Quarterly Review.

3 Faithful. The name of a dog.

All stand aghast :-unheeding all,
The henchman bursts into the hall;
Before the dead man's bier he stood;

Held forth the Cross besmear'd with blood; "The muster place is Lanrick mead;

Speed forth the signal! clansmen, speed!"

XVIII.

Angus, the heir of Duncan's line,1
Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign.
In haste the stripling to his side
His father's dirk and broadsword tied;
But when he saw his mother's eye
Watch him in speechless agony,
Back to her open'd arms he flew,
Press'd on her lips a fond adieu-
"Alas!" she sobb'd,-" and yet, be gone,
And speed thee forth, like Duncan's son!"
One look he cast upon the bier,

Dash'd from his eye the gathering tear,
Breathed deep to clear his labouring breast,
And toss'd aloft his bonnet crest,

Then, like the high-bred colt, when, freed, First he essays his fire and speed,

1 MS.-Angus, the first of Duncan's line,
Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign,
And then upon his kinsman's bier
Fell Malise's suspended tear.
In haste the stripling to his side
His father's targe and falchion tied.

And when she mark'd the henchman's eye
Wet with unwonted sympathy,
"Kinsman," she said, "his race is run,
That should have sped thine errand on;