On the long procession goes, O miserere, Domine! Bands that masses only sung, O miserere, Domine! Weltering amid warriors slain, Slaughter'd down by heathen blade, Sing, O miserere, Domine! Bangor! o'er the murder wail ! Long thy ruins told the tale, Shatter'd towers and broken arch Long recall'd the woeful march:1 On thy shrine no tapers burn, Never shall thy priests return; The pilgrim sighs and sings for thee, O miserere, Domine! Letter TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH, DRUMLANRIG CASTLE, Sanquhar, 2 o'clock, July 30, 1817. FROM ROSS, where the clouds on Benlomond are sleeping [Sir Walter's companion on this excursion was Captain, now Sir Adam Ferguson.-See Life, vol. v., p. 234.] From Rob Roy. 1817. (1.) TO THE MEMORY OF EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE. "A BLOTTED piece of paper dropped out of the book, and, being taken up by my father, he interrupted a hint from Owen, on the propriety of securing loose memoranda with a little paste, by exclaiming, "To the memory of Edward the Black Prince-What's all this-verses!--By Heaven, Frank, you are a greater blockhead than I supposed you!"" O for the voice of that wild horn, That told imperial Charlemagne, Had wrought his champion's fall. "Poitiers, by the way, is always spelled with an s, and I know no reason why orthography should give From Greenock, where Clyde to the Ocean is sweep- place to rhyme." ing From Largs, where the Scotch gave the Northmen a drilling From Ardrossan, whose harbour cost many a shilling From Old Cumnock, where beds are as hard as a plank, sir From a chop and green pease, and a chicken in Sanquhar, "Raise my faint head, my squires," he said, "And let the casement be display'd, That I may see once more The splendour of the setting sun And Blaye's empurpled shore." "Garonne and sun is a bad rhyme. Why, Frank, This eve, please the Fates, at Drumlanrig we anchor. you do not even understand the beggarly trade you W. S. 1 William of Malmsbury says, that in his time the extent of the ruins of the monastery bore ample witness to the desolation occasioned by the massacre;-" tot semiruti parietes. have chosen."" ecclesiarum, tot anfractus porticum, tanta turba ruderum quantum vix alibi cernas." Look round thee, young Astolpho: Here's the place Which men (for being poor) are sent to starve in,— Within these walls, stifled by damp and stench, Till bondage sunk his soul to his condition. The Prison, Scene iii. Act i. (3.)-MOTTOES. (1.)-CHAP. X. In the wide pile, by others heeded not, Epilogue to the Appeal.1 SPOKEN BY MRS. HENRY SIDDONS, FEB. 16, 1818. A CAT of yore (or else old Æsop lied) Yes, times are changed; for, in your fathers' age, The lawyers were the patrons of the stage; However high advanced by future fate, was about to depart upon a distant and dangerous expedition. The Minstrel was impressed with a belief, which the event verified, that he was to be slain in the approaching feud; and hence the Gaelic words, “ Cha till mi tuille; ged thillis Macleod, cha till Mackrimmon," ‚” “ I shall never return; although Macleod returns, yet Mackrimmon shall never return! The piece is but too well known, from its being the strain with which the emigrants from the West Highlands and Isles usually take leave of their native shore. י ! MACLEOD'S wizard flag from the grey castle sallies, The rowers are seated, unmoor'd are the galleys; Gleam war-axe and broadsword, clang target and quiver, There stands the bench (points to the Pit) that first As Mackrimmon sings, "Farewell to Dunvegan for received their weight. The future legal sage, 'twas ours to see, Doom though unwigg'd, and plead without a fee. But now, astounding each poor mimic elf, But, soft! who lives at Rome the Pope must flatter, Mackrimmon's Lament.* 1818. AIR" Cha till mi tuille." 5 Mackrimmon, hereditary piper to the Laird of Macleod, is said to have composed this Lament when the Clan ever! Farewell to each cliff, on which breakers are foaming; Farewell, each dark glen, in which red-deer are roam ing; Farewell, lonely Skye, to lake, mountain, and river; Macleod may return, but Mackrimmon shall never! "Farewell the bright clouds that on Quillan are sleeping; Farewell the bright eyes in the Dun that are weeping; To each minstrel delusion, farewell!—and for ever— The pall of the dead for a mantle hangs o'er me; But my heart shall not flag, and my nerves shall not shiver, Though devoted I go-to return again never! "Too oft shall the notes of Mackrimmon's bewail ing Be heard when the Gael on their exile are sailing; Dear land! to the shores, whence unwilling we sever, Return-return-return shall we never! Cha till, cha till, cha till sin tuille! Cha till, cha till, cha till sin tuille, Cha till, cha till, cha till sin tuille, "The Appeal," a Tragedy, by John Galt, the celebrated author of the "Annals of the Parish," and other Novels, was played for four nights at this time in Edinburgh. It is necessary to mention, that the allusions in this piece are all local, and addressed only to the Edinburgh audience. The new prisons of the city, on the Calton Hill, are not far from the theatre. 3 At this time the public of Edinburgh was much agitated by a lawsuit betwixt the Magistrates and many of the Inhabitants of the City, concerning a range of new buildings on the western side of the North Bridge; which the latter insisted should be removed as a deformity. 4 Written for Albyn's Anthology. 5" We return no more." 6 See a note on Banshee, Lady of the Lake, ante, p. 242. 1 Written for Albyn's Anthology, vol. ii., 1818, and set to highly amused with a sly allusion to his two-fold character of music in Mr. Thomson's Collection, in 1822 Caird signifies Tinker. 3 Mr. D. Thomson, of Galashiels, produced a parody on this song at an annual dinner of the manufacturers there, which Sir Walter Scott usually attended; and the Poet was Sheriff of Selkirkshire, and author-suspect of "Rob Roy," in the chorus, "Think ye, does the Shirra ken Rob M'Gregor's come again?" I glance like the wildfire through country and town; Here little, and hereafter biiss, Is best from age to age. "As Jeanie entered, she heard first the air, and then a part of the chorus and words of what had been, What did ye wi' the bridal ring-bridal ring-bridal perhaps, the song of a jolly harvest-home." ring? What did ye wi' your wedding ring, ye little cutty Our work is over-over now, The goodman wipes his weary brow, The night comes on when sets the sun, "The attendant on the hospital arranged her in her bed as she desired, with her face to the wall, and her back to the light. So soon as she was quiet in this new position, she began again to sing in the same low and modulated strains, as if she was recovering the state of abstraction which the interruption of her visitants had disturbed. The strain, however, was dif ferent, and rather resembled the music of the methodist hymns, though the measure of the song was similar to that of the former:" When the fight of grace is fought,— When Faith has chased cold Doubt away, And Hope but sickens at delay,— "Her next seemed to be the fragment of some old ballad:" Cauld is my bed, Lord Archibald, And weep ye not, my maidens free, Shall die for me to-morrow "Again she changed the tune to one wilder, less monotonous, and less regular. But of the words only a fragment or two could be collected by those who listened to this singular scene:" Proud Maisie is in the wood, Sweet Robin sits on the bush, Singing so rarely. |
