Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast, Whose banners arise on the battlements' height, For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood. LOCHIEL. False Wizard, avaŭnt! I have marshalled my clan : Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one! They are true to the last of their blood and their breath, And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock! Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock! But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, WIZARD. -Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day! I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring king., Lo! anointed by heaven with the vials of wrath, Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight: Rise! rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight! 'Tis finished. moors; Their thunders are hushed on the Culloden is lost, and my country deplores; But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where? For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn, Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn? Ah no! for a darker departure is near; The war drum is muffled, and black is the bier; His death-bell is tolling; oh! mercy, dispel Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell! Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs, And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims. Accursed be the faggots, that blaze at his feet, Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat, With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale- LOCHIEL. -Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale: For never shall Albin a destiny meet, So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat. Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, |