Lays of the Highlands and Islands :: :: University of Virginia Library

At Quatre Bras, when the fight ran high,
Stout Cameron stood with wakeful eye,
Eager to leap, as a mettlesome hound,
Into the fray with a plunge and a bound.
But Wellington, lord of the cool command,
Held the reins with a steady hand,
Saying, “Cameron, wait, you'll soon have enough,
Giving the Frenchman a taste of your stuff,
When the Cameron men are wanted.”

Now hotter and hotter the battle grew,
With tramp, and rattle, and wild halloo,
And the Frenchmen poured, like a fiery flood,
Right on the ditch where Cameron stood.
Then Wellington flashed from his steadfast stance
On his captain brave a lightning glance,

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Saying, “Cameron, now have at them, boy,
Take care of the road to Charleroi,
Where the Cameron men are wanted!”

Brave Cameron shot like a shaft from a bow,
Into the midst of the plunging foe,
And with him the lads whom he loved, like a torrent
Sweeping the rocks in its foamy current;
And he fell the first in the fervid fray,
Where a deathful shot had shove its way,
But his men pushed on where the work was rough,
Giving the Frenchman a taste of their stuff,
Where the Cameron men were wanted.

Brave Cameron then, from the battle's roar,
His foster-brother stoutly bore,
His foster-brother with service true,
Back to the village of Waterloo.
And they laid him on the soft green sod,
And he breathed his spirit there to God,
But not till he heard the loud hurrah
Of victory billowed from Quatre Bras,
Where the Cameron men were wanted.

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By the road to Ghent they buried him then,
This noble chief of the Cameron men,
And not an eye was tearless seen
That day beside the alley green:
Wellington wept, the iron man;
And from every eye in the Cameron clan
The big round drop in bitterness fell,
As with the pipes he loved so well
His funeral wail they chanted.

And now he sleeps (for they bore him home,
When the war was done, across the foam)
Beneath the shadow of Nevis Ben,
With his sires, the pride of the Cameron men.
Three thousand Highlandmen stood round,
As they laid him to rest in his native ground,
The Cameron brave, whose eye never quailed,
Whose heart never sank, and whose hand never failed,
Where a Cameron man was wanted.

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FASSFEARN.

Stout old Simplicity, here I wisely greet
Thy grandeur, and on Cameron's cradle look
Well pleased, heart's brother of the iron duke,
From whom the fulminant Frenchman knew defeat.
No pillared halls were there, no gay saloons,
But a plain low white house that scorned display,
Where thou wert reared as Romans were, when they
Rose from the plough to whip the Volscian loons.
O rare old times in simple manhood schooled,
From which our vauntful age hath vainly swerved,
When they who ruled, like faithful fathers ruled,
And they who served, as trustful children served!
Hence mighty captains grew, and men who bled
As heroes bleed, where dauntless Cameron led.

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GLENFINNAN.

When Charlie lifted the standard
At Loch Shiel low in the glen,
His heart was lifted within him,
As he looked on the Nevis Ben.

And looked on the clans around him,
The Cameron men in their pride;
The men of Moidart and Knoydart,
And the brave Lochiel at his side.

And his blood rose proudly within him,
And he thought as he stood in the glen,
Ben Nevis is monarch of mountains,
And Charlie is monarch of men!

But many a son of the mountain,
Whose face at noon was bright,
Felt the heart within him sinking,
As he lay in his plaid that night,

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While the wind through the rifts of the valley,
Came piping so shrill and so clear,
And athwart the heart of the brave man,
Swept the black shadow of fear.

And a voice was heard in the wind without,
And within in the heart of the wise,
And to the best friends of Charlie,
With bodeful pity it cries.

O Charlie, fair was the seeming,
And rare was the kilted show,
But Charlie, from daring and dreaming
No blossom to berries will grow!

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THE MONUMENT OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD, AT GLENFINNAN, LOCH SHIEL.

Misfortuned youth, if daring gave a claim,
And splendid hazard to a hero's glory,
Then history knew than thine no nobler story,
In the bright rolls of Greek and Roman fame.
For thou wert bold, and what thy fancy bred,
Of flattering fond conceit thy heart believed;
And they who followed where thy bright dream led,
Dashed into hopeless strife, and were deceived.
For thou lacked wisdom, and thy speed outran
Thy strength; strong trees take longest time to grow;
Wishes have wings; but in the state of man,
Deeds creep behind with limping pace and slow.
Thrice-hapless prince, for thy bold brilliant whim,
Thy friends must pay in woes that overbrim.

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KINLOCH LEVEN.

As when a student toiling with annoy,
Through long dry tomes that tomb the dusty past,
Lights on some gleam of nobleness at last,
He brightens, and his heart leaps up for joy;
So glad was I when from the cheerless hue
Of broad bleak moor, black loch, and swampy fen,
Deep from the rich warm bosom of the glen,
The green Kinloch stept brightly into view.
Happy the chief who in such still retreat,
Nurses the memory of long-centuried sires,
Whose faithful people go with forward feet
Where his eye flashes, and his voice inspires,
Who makes the hills his home, and reigns a king
O'er willing hearts who love his sheltering wing.

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KINLOCH MOIDART.

I.

And this is Moidart! in this extreme nook
The Stuart landed, and the Pope has friends,
And the old Faith that swears by church and book,
Stands stiffly here, and neither breaks nor bends;
Like some hoar father of a scattered race,
Vagrants of East and West, a homeless crew,
He only holds the old familiar place,
And the men know him now who always knew.
Not wise is he who vents an angry breath,
'Gainst souls that hang by Europe's hoary creed,
And, for his legs are sound, deals wanton scaith
On the old crutch that helps the limper's speed;
We all must cling to something in our need,
Else helmless tossed through darkness into death.

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KINLOCH MOIDART.

II.

“Papists—the Devil!” Nay, good friend, be quiet,
I live to love all things, whose name is Man;
The west wind here may bravely rage and riot,
But spare me curses 'gainst the human clan.
Papists I've known the foremost in the van
Of God's most elect host of golden worth,
And you, poor shell-fish, squirt your spiteful ban
Against the men most like to Christ on earth!
Go to your Bible, Protestant, and learn
On prayerful knees, the one thing needful there;
This found, 'tis matter of most light concern,
What name you go by, or what dress you wear;
Fan in your breast the sacred fire that warms,
And waste no breath in wrangling about forms.