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I.

NIGHT and morning were at meeting
Over Waterloo;

Cocks had sung their earliest greeting;
Faint and low they crew;

For no paly beam yet shone
On the heights of Mount Saint John;
Tempest-clouds prolong'd the sway
Of timeless darkness over day;
Whirlwind, thunder-clap, and shower,
Mark'd it a predestined hour.
Broad and frequent through the night
Flash'd the sheets of levin-light;
Muskets, glancing lightnings back,
Show'd the dreary bivouac

Where the soldier lay,

Chill and stiff, and drench'd with rain,
Wishing dawn of morn again,

Though death should come with day.
II.

'Tis at such a tide and hour,

Wizard, witch, and fiend have power,
And ghastly forms through mist and shower
Gleam on the gifted ken;

And then the affrighted prophet's ear
Drinks whispers strange of fate and fear
Presaging death and ruin near

. Among the sons of men ;-
Apart from Albyn's war-array,
'Twas then gray Allan sleepless lay;
Gray Allan, who, for many a day,
Had follow'd stout and stern,

Where, through battle's rout and reel,

4 Originally published in 1815, in the Edinburgh Annual Register, vol. v.

MS.-" Dawn and darkness."

1

Storm of shot and hedge of steel, Led the grandson of Lochiel,

Valiant Fassiefern.

Through steel and shot he leads no more,
Low laid 'mid friends' and foemen's gore-
But long his native lake's wild shore,
And Sunart rough, and high Ardgower,
And Morven long shall tell,

And proud Bennevis hear with awe,
How, upon bloody Quatre-Bras,

Brave Cameron heard the wild hurra

Of conquest as he fell.'

III.

'Lone on the outskirts of the host,
The weary sentinel held post,

And heard, through darkness far aloof,
The frequent clang of courser's hoof,
Where held the cloak'd patrol their course,
And spurr'd 'gainst storm the swerving
horse;

But there are sounds in Allan's ear,

Patrol nor sentinel may hear,

And sights before his eye aghast
Invisible to them have pass'd,

When down the destined plain,

"Twixt Britain and the bands of France,
Wild as marsh-borne meteor's glance,
Strange phantoms wheel'd a revel dance,
And doom'd the future slain.-

Such forms were seen, such sounds were

heard,

When Scotland's James his march prepared, For Flodden's fatal plain;3

Such, when he drew his ruthless sword,

As Choosers of the Slain, adored

The yet unchristen'd Dane.

An indistinct and phantom band,

They wheel'd their ring-dance hand in hand,

With gestures wild and dread;

The Seer, who watch'd them ride the storm, Saw through their faint and shadowy form

The lightning's flash more red;

And still their ghastly roundelay
Was of the coming battle-fray,
And of the destined dead.

IV. Song.

"Wheel the wild dance While lightnings glance,

And thunders rattle loud,

And call the brave
To bloody grave,

To sleep without a shroud.

1 See note, ante, p. 509.

2 MS.-" Oft came the clang," &c.

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"My arm it is my country's right,
My heart is in my lady's bower;
Resolved for love and fame to fight,
I come, a gallant Troubadour."

Even when the battle-roar was deep,

With dauntless heart he hew'd his way, 'Mid splintering lance and falchion-sweep, And still was heard his warrior-lay: "My life it is my country's right,

My heart is in my lady's bower; For love to die, for fame to fight, Becomes the valiant Troubadour."

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