 | Lays of the Highlands and Islands |  |
GLENCOE.
A HISTORICAL BALLAD.
I.
The snow is white on the Pap of Glencoe,
And all is bleak and dreary,
But gladness reigns in the vale below,
Where life is blithe and cheery,
Where the old Macdonald, stout and true,
Sits in the hall which his fathers knew,
Sits, with the sword which his fathers drew
On the old wall glancing clearly,
Where the dry logs blaze on the huge old hearth,
And the old wine flows that fans the mirth
Of the friends that love him dearly.
And all is bleak and dreary,
But gladness reigns in the vale below,
Where life is blithe and cheery,
Where the old Macdonald, stout and true,
Sits in the hall which his fathers knew,
Sits, with the sword which his fathers drew
On the old wall glancing clearly,
Where the dry logs blaze on the huge old hearth,
And the old wine flows that fans the mirth
Of the friends that love him dearly.
Heavily, heavily lies the snow
On the old grey ash and the old blue pine,
And the cold winds drearily drearily blow
Down the glen with a moan and a whine;
But little reck they how the storm may bray,
Or the linn may roar in the glen,
Where the bright cups flow, and the light jests play,
And Macdonald is master of men,
Where Macdonald is king of the feast to-night,
And sways the hour with a landlord's right,
And broadens his smile, and opens his breast,
As a host may do to a dear-loved guest;
And many a stirring tale he told
Of battle, and war, and chase,
And heroes that sleep beneath the mould,
The pride of his lordly race;
And many a headlong venture grim,
With the hounds that track the deer,
By the rifted chasm's hanging rim
And the red-scaured mountain sheer.
And many a song did the harper sing
Of Ossian blind and hoary,
That made the old oak rafter ring
With the pulse of Celtic story;
And the piper blew a gamesome reel
That the young blood hotly stirred,
And they beat the ground with lightsome heel
Till the midnight bell was heard.
And then to rest they laid them down,
And soon the strong sleep bound them,
While the winds without kept whistling rout,
And the thick snows drifted round them.
On the old grey ash and the old blue pine,
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Down the glen with a moan and a whine;
But little reck they how the storm may bray,
Or the linn may roar in the glen,
Where the bright cups flow, and the light jests play,
And Macdonald is master of men,
Where Macdonald is king of the feast to-night,
And sways the hour with a landlord's right,
And broadens his smile, and opens his breast,
As a host may do to a dear-loved guest;
And many a stirring tale he told
Of battle, and war, and chase,
And heroes that sleep beneath the mould,
The pride of his lordly race;
And many a headlong venture grim,
With the hounds that track the deer,
By the rifted chasm's hanging rim
And the red-scaured mountain sheer.
And many a song did the harper sing
Of Ossian blind and hoary,
That made the old oak rafter ring
With the pulse of Celtic story;
And the piper blew a gamesome reel
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And they beat the ground with lightsome heel
Till the midnight bell was heard.
And then to rest they laid them down,
And soon the strong sleep bound them,
While the winds without kept whistling rout,
And the thick snows drifted round them.
II.
But one there was whose eye that nightNo peaceful slumber knew,
Or, if he slept, he dreamt of blood,
And woke by Coe's far-sounding flood,
To make his dreaming true.
A Campbell was he, of a hated clan,
—God's curse be on his name!—
Who to Macdonald's goodly glen
On traitor's errand came.
He had the old man's niece to wife,
(A love that should have buried strife,)
And shook his hand for faithful proof,
And slept beneath his friendly roof;
And he that night had shared the mirth
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And, wise in devil's art,
Had laughed and quaffed, and danced and sung,
And talked with honey on his tongue,
And murder in his heart.
And now, to buy a grace from power
And men the slaves of the venal hour,
Or with the gust of blood to sate
A heart whose luxury was hate,
His hand was on the whetted knife
That thirsts to drink the old man's life;
And soon the blood shall flow,
From which the curse shall grow,
That since the world to sin began
Pursues the lawless-handed man;
And false Glen Lyon's traitor name
Shall live, a blazing badge of shame,
While memory links the crimson crime,
The basest in the book of Time,
With Campbell and Glencoe.
III.
'Tis five o'clock i' the morn; of light82
And the snow that drifted through the night
Shrouds every spot of green.
Not yet the cock hath blown his horn,
But the base red-coated crew
Creep through the silence of the morn
With butcher-work to do.
And now to the old man's house they came,
Where he lived in the strength of his proud old name,
A brave unguarded life;
And now they enter the old oak room,
Where he lay, all witless of his doom,
In the arms of his faithful wife;
And through the grace of his hoary head,
As he turned him starting from his bed,
They shot the deadly-missioned lead,
And reaved his purple life;
Then from the lady, where she lay
With outstretched arms in blank dismay,
They rove the vest, and in deray
They flung her on the floor;
And from her quivering fingers tore
With their teeth the rare old rings she wore;
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Into the cold unkindly air,
And in the snow they left her there,
Where not a friend was nigh,
With many a curse, and never a tear,
Like an outcast beast to die.
IV.
And now the butcher-work went onHotly, hotly up the glen;
For the order was given full sharply then
The lion to slay with the cubs in his den,
And never a male to spare;
And the king's own hand had signed the ban,
To glut the hate of the Campbell clan,
And the spite of the Master of Stair.
From every clachan in long Glencoe
The shriek went up, and the blood did flow
Reeking and red on the wreathèd snow.
Every captain had his station
On the banks of the roaring water,
Watching o'er the butchered nation
Like the demons of the slaughter.
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And laid his breathless twenty low;
At Inveruggen, Campbell grim
Made the floor with gore to swim—
Nine he counted in a row
Brothered in a bloody show,
And one who oft for him had spread
The pillow 'neath his traitor head,
To woo the kindly rest.
At Auchnachoin stern Barker pressed
The pitiless work with savage zest,
And on the broad mead by the water
Heaped ten souls in huddled slaughter.
The young man blooming in his pride,
The old man with crack'd breath,
The bridegroom severed from his bride,
And son with father side by side,
Lie swathed in one red death;
And Fire made league with Murder fell
Where flung by many a raging hand,
From house to house the flaming brand
Contagious flew; and crackling spar
And crashing beam, make hideous jar,
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What horror stalked the glen that day,
What ghastly fear and grim dismay,
No tongue of man may tell;
What shame to Orange William's sway,
When Murder throve with honours decked,
And every traitor stood erect,
And every true man fell!
V.
'Tis twelve o'clock at noon; and stillHeavily, heavily on the hill
The storm outwreaks his wintry will,
And flouts the blinded sun;
And now the base red-coated crew,
And the fiends in hell delight to view
The sanguine slaughter done.
But where be they, the helpless troop,
Spared by red murder's ruthless swoop—
The feeble woman, the maiden mild,
The mother with her sucking child,
And all who fled with timely haste
From hissing shot, and sword uncased?
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They are fled, some here, some there;
Some have scrambled up the Ben
And crossed the granite ridges bare,
And found kind word and helping hand
On Appin's green and friendly strand;
Some in the huts of lone Glenure
Found kindly care and shelter sure,
And some in face of the tempest's roar,
Behind the shelving Buchailmore,
With stumbling foot did onward press
To thy Ben-girdled nook; Dalness;
And some huge Cruachan's peak behind
Found a broad shield from drift and wind,
And warmed their frozen frames at fires
Kindled by friendly Macintyres.
But most—O Heaven!—a feeble nation,
Crept slowly from the mountain station;
The old, the sickly, and the frail,
Went blindly on with straggling trail,
The little tender-footed maid,
The little boy that loved to wade
In the clear waters of the Coe,
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On them, ere half their way was made,
The night came down, and they were laid,
Some on the scaurs of the jaggèd Bens,
Some in black bogs and stony glens,
Faint and worn, till kindly Death
Numbed their limbs, and froze their breath,
And wound them in the snow.
And there they lay with none to know,
And none with pious kind concern
To honour with a cross or cairn
The remnant of Glencoe.
And on the hills a curse doth lie
That will not die with years;
And oft-times 'neath a scowling sky,
Through the black rent, where the torrent grim
Leaps 'neath the huge crag's frowning rim,
The wind comes down with a moan and a sigh;
And a voice, like the voice of a wail and a cry,
The lonely traveller hears,
A voice, like the voice of Albyn weeping
For the sorrow and the shame
That stained the British soldier's name,
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And power was honour's foe;
Weeping for scutcheons rudely torn,
And worth disowned and glory shorn,
And for the valiant-hearted men
That once were mighty in the glen
Of lonely bleak Glencoe.
| Lays of the Highlands and Islands | |