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. AFORE the king in order stude The stout laird of Muirhead, He sware he wadna lose his right Nor budge him from his liege's sight, Twa hunder mair, of his ain name, And wond'rous weil they kept their troth; Rush'd down the brae, wi' sic a pith, Mony a bludey blow they delt, ODE ON VISITING FLODDEN. BY J. LEYDEN. GREEN Flodden! on thy blood-stained head But still, thou charnel of the dead, May whitening bones thy surface strew! To see the bannered pomp of war return, And mark, beneath the moon, the silver light of spears. Lo! bursting from their common tomb, Of heaving corses, moves each shadowy file, What youth, of graceful form and mien, From Ord's black mountain to the northern main, Alas! that Scottish maid should sing The combat where her lover fell! That Scottish bard should wake the string, And, at the sacred font, the priest, Red Flodden! when thy plaintive strain, In early youth, rose soft and sweet, My life-blood, through each throbbing vein, And oft, in fancied might, I trod The spear-strewn path to Fame's abode, And thought I heard the mingling hum, |