LXXXII.

Away! they cry; another mile
For Mungo let us freely toil,
Ere ghost of witch, or suicide,
Or bairns that unbaptized died,
His gentle spirit should be bound
To ward away from holy ground:

Who knows what time another soul

Would come in turn to take controul?

Then let us run a little while

To save poor Mungo miekle toil :

Yon fun'ral comes, but strain your pow'rs, And victory will soon be ours.

THE

GRAVE

OF

GLENALMOND.

A POEM INSCRIBED TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

The most romantic pass of the Grampian mountains, and one of the wildest scenes in the Highlands of Scotland, is Glenalmond, a valley about halfway between Crieff and Aberfeldy near the centre of which is seen the well-known grave of the Soldier, whose melancholy fate is the subject of the following Poem.

PEEPING

EEPING o'er jutting crags on the hunter below, To see the sleek fawn of the fleet-bounding roe, The trav❜ller to dreary Glenalmond may hie, And wonder at rocks there upraised in the sky :

But when the grey eagle retires to his nest,
And kids all around seem in safety to rest,
What stranger would stay, if he heard the sad tale
That is told of the tumulus seen in the vale?

O pass not, kind Sir, through this valley of Death, When sable clouds low'r over lightning singed heath; Or when the fierce night-hawk, in search of his prey, Screams round the black gibbet at parting of day; Incautiously would you this warning forego, Humanity strongly invites you to know

The worm-wasted Braeman's fate, laid in yon grave, O'er which the tall ferns of the wilderness wave.

In scatt'ring the vengeance of Britain on those
Who ventured her sovereign will to oppose,
Regardless of danger, in many a clime,

Most valiantly Taggart devoted his prime ;
Though Time's wasting hand had enfeebled his frame,
No hardship his high soaring spirit could tame;
But weary of warfare, when Peace crown'd his toil,
He wish'd to return to his own native soil.

Although a grim skeleton, covered with scars, Taking home little more than his bones from the wars,

The strength of the veteran seem'd to renew

As the dark heathy hills of the North rose in view.
Top Turloch he passed, and the Leadnoch was near,
The noise of the Almond was sweet in his ear;
And bright was the joy candle's beam in his eye,
As lightly he lilted this pibroch of joy:

"O gather not round me, ye clouds, till I see Rising over my cottage the mountain ash tree! Ah! well I remember, when 'neath its brown shade, How bonnets and belts of green rushes I made; How dirks and claymores, of the bog-buried pine, I artfully cut out, and thought myself fine;

As some Druid circle, thus deckt I march'd round, With squad keeping time to the saugh whistle's sound.

"On garrison duty, or warding the plain, Alone or surrounded by ramparts of slain,

Or resting at night by the wolf-scaring blaze,
Midst savages wand'ring the wood's winding maze ;
Wherever I was, or by land or by sea,

The home of my fathers was present to me;
There surely kind Heaven will allow me to find
The long fancied pleasures that rose in my mind.

"Where blows the crow flower on yon dusky hill

side,

Rose Morag, in life both my comfort and pride;
How fond, when a child, was I yonder to seek
The bramble-bush berry to stain her red cheek,
Whilst she gather'd king-cups or daisies, to deck,
With fanciful chaplets, the nanny-goat's neck,
Whose skin is the purse and the knapsack I bear,
Whose horn is the hilt of the dagger I wear!

"And when I, to keep my old sire in the land, Put up a cockade at the chieftain's command,

t

Then cheerfully Morag, to share in my toil,
Left all her relations and Britain's green isle.
Where loud roar'd the fight, she was still in the rear,
To bind up my wounds and my spirits to cheer;
Nor would she repine, though she march'd, or was hurl'd
On big guns or baggage-carts over the world.

"But now I'm discharged at the reveillie's sound, No more will I rise white with snow from the ground, Nor at the rough rattle of Cuckold come Dig,' Again shoulder shovel, and march to fatigue.