And near, the beat of the alarming drum,
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips-"The foe! they come! they
And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose!
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills
Have heard; and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring, which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years;
And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears!
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving,—if aught inanimate e'er grieves, -
Over the unreturning brave, alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure; when this fiery mass
Of living valor, rolling on the foe,
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low!
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay,
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,
The morn, the marshalling in arms,
Battle's magnificently-stern array!
The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse, friend, foe,- in one red burial blent!
VIII. SATAN RALLYING THE FALLEN ANGELS. Milton.
He scarce had ceased when the superior fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast, the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders, like the moon, whose orb,
Thro' optic glass, the Tuscan artist views,
At evening, from the top of Fiesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, on her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast
Of some great admiral, were but a wand,
He walked with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marl: (not like those steps
On Heaven's azure!) and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
His legions, angel forms, who lay, entranced,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds, Orion armed,
Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore, their floating carcases
And broken chariot wheels: so thick bestrown,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of hell resounded.
"Princes! Potentates! Warriors! the flower of heaven, once yours, now lost, If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal spirits or have ye chosen this place,
To rest your wearied virtue, for the ease ye find
To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven?
Or in this abject posture have you sworn
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood,
With scattered arms and ensigns; till, anon,
His swift pursuers, from heaven gates discern
The advantage, and descending, tread us down
Thus drooping; or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake! arise! or be forever fallen!"
IX. - HYMN TO MONT BLANC. - Coleridge.
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? so long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly, while thou, dread mountain form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the sky and black: transpicuous deep
An ebon mass! methinks thou piercest it
As with a wedge! But when I look again
It seems thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity.
O dread and silent form! I gazed on thee
Till thou, still present to my bodily eye,
Didst vanish from my thought. - Entranced in prayer,
I worshipped the Invisible alone,
Yet thou, methinks, wast working on my soul,
E'en like some deep enchanting melody,
So sweet we know not we are listening to it.
But I awake, and with a busier mind
And active will, self-conscious, offer now,
Not, as before, involuntary prayer
And passive adoration.
Awake, awake! and thou, my heart, awake!
Green fields and icy cliffs! all join my hymn!
And thou, O silent mountain, sole and bare,
O blacker than the darkness, all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars, -
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink, -
Companion of the morning star, at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald wake, oh! wake, and utter praise !
Who sank thy sunless pillars in the earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee father of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad,
Who called you forth from night and utter death?
From darkness let you loose, and icy dens,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Forever shattered, and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded — and the silence came,
"Here shall the billows stiffen and have rest?"
Ye ice-falls! ye that from your dizzy heights
Adown enormous ravines steeply slope, —
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty noise,
And stopped at once amidst their maddest plunge, -
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven,
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the Sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who with lovely flowers
Of living blue spread garlands at your feet?
God! God! the torrents like a shout of nations.
Utter: the ice-plain bursts, and answers, God!
God! sing the meadow streams with gladsome voice,
And pine-groves with their soft and soul-like sound.
The silent snow-mass, loosening, thunders, God!
Ye dreadless flowers, that fringe the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats bounding by the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain blast!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements.
Utter forth God! and fill the hills with praise!
And thou, O silent form, alone and bare,-
Whom as I lift again my head, bowed low
In silent adoration, I again behold,
And to thy summit upward from thy base
Sweep slowly, with dim eyes suffused with tears, -
Awake thou mountain form! Rise like a cloud,
Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread Ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch, tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell the rising sun,
Earth with her thousand voices calls on GOD.
X.-ODE ON THE PASSIONS. - Collins.
When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, -
Possessed beyond the Muse's painting.
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 't is said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each, (for madness ruled the hour,)
Would prove his own expressive power.
First, Fear, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid;
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
Even at the sound himself had made.
Next, Anger rushed his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
With one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hands the strings.
With woful measures, wan Despair
Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air:
'Twas sad, by fits; - by starts, 't was wild.
But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail.
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all her song:
And, where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close; And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair:
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