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THE LAIRD OF MUIRHEAD.

This Ballad is a fragment from MR HERD'S MS., communicated to him by J. GROSSETT MUIRHEAD, at Breadesholm, near Glasgow; who stated, that he extracted it, as relating to his own Family, from the complete Song, in which the names of twenty or thirty gentlemen were mentioned, contained in a large Collection, belonging to MR ALEXANDER MONRO, merchant in Lisbon, supposed now to be lost.

It appears, from the Appendix to NESBIT'S Heraldry, p. 264, that MUIRHEAD of Lachop and Bullis, the person here called the Laird of MUIRHEAD, was a man of rank, being rentaller, or perhaps feuar, of many crown lands in Galloway; and was, in truth, slain " in Campo Belli de Northumberland sub vexillo Regis," i. e. in the Field of Flodden.

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AFORE the king in order stude

The stout laird of Muirhead,
Wi' that sam twa-hand muckle sword
That Bartram felled stark deid.

He sware he wadna lose his right
To fight in ilka field;

Nor budge him from his liege's sight,
Till his last gasp should yield.

Twa hunder mair, of his ain name,
Frae Torwood and the Clyde,
Sware they would never gang to hame,
But a' die by his syde.

And wond'rous weil they kept their troth;
This sturdy royal band

Rush'd down the brae, wi' sic a pith,
That nane cou'd them withstand.

Mony a bludey blow they delt,
The like was never seen ;
And hadna that braw leader fallen,
They ne'er had slain the king.

ODE

ON VISITING FLODDEN.

BY J. LEYDEN.

GREEN Flodden! on thy blood-stained head
Descend no rain nor vernal dew;

But still, thou charnel of the dead,

May whitening bones thy surface strew!
Soon as I tread thy rush-clad vale,
Wild fancy feels the clasping mail;
The rancour of a thousand years
Glows in my breast; again I burn

To see the bannered pomp of war return,

And mark, beneath the moon, the silver light of spears.

Lo! bursting from their common tomb,
The spirits of the ancient dead
Dimly streak the parted gloom,
With awful faces, ghastly red;
As once, around their martial king,
They closed the death-devoted ring,
With dauntless hearts, unknown to yield;
In slow procession round the pile

Of heaving corses, moves each shadowy file,
And chaunts, in solemn strain, the dirge of Flodden field.

What youth, of graceful form and mien,
Foremost leads the spectred brave,
While o'er his mantle's folds of green
His amber locks redundant wave?
When slow returns the fated day,
That viewed their chieftain's long array,
Wild to the harp's deep, plaintive string,
The virgins raise the funeral strain,

From Ord's black mountain to the northern main,
And mourn the emerald hue which paints the vest of spring.

Alas! that Scottish maid should sing

The combat where her lover fell!

That Scottish bard should wake the string,
The triumph of our foes to tell !
Yet Teviot's sons, with high disdain,
Have kindled at the thrilling strain
That mourned their martial fathers' bier;

And, at the sacred font, the priest,
Through ages left the master-hand unblest,
To urge, with keener aim, the blood-encrusted spear.

Red Flodden! when thy plaintive strain,

In early youth, rose soft and sweet,

My life-blood, through each throbbing vein,
With wild tumultuous passion beat.

And oft, in fancied might, I trod

The spear-strewn path to Fame's abode,
Encircled with a sanguine flood;

And thought I heard the mingling hum,
When, croaking hoarse, the birds of carrion come
Afar, on rustling wing, to feast on English blood.

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