University of Virginia Library

II.

But one there was whose eye that night
No 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
Around the old man's friendly hearth,
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.