University of Virginia Library

---

162

ABERDEENSHIRE.

BRAEMAR:

THE THREE CHURCHES.

---

163

---

164

---

165

BEN MUICDHUI.

---

166

THE HIGHLANDER'S LAMENT.

Down Cluny's grassy glen there came an aged Highlandman,
But firm his step, and proud his heart with memories of his clan.
A shrewd clear-thoughted man was he—as many such there be
In Scotia's land—though plain his garb, and humble his degree;
And, like that wandering Greek, had travelled from his native glen,
And seen the cities, and known the minds of variouscustomed men;
And now with rich experience mild, but with a heart that burned
With the untamed fire of youth, he to his Highland home returned.
Gladly he breathed the breeze that blew from lofty Loch-na-Gar,

---

167

And his eye roamed freely o'er the purple braes of broad Braemar.
Full many a thought of joyous days, that ne'er might be again,
Full many a mist-enshrouded form was floating through his brain;
But, when he came to Coldrach bridge, where the forceful mountain torrent
Cuts through the pointed granite ledge with deep dark-swirling current,
He sate him down; and, while his eye with streaming sorrow fills,
He looked upon the bright green slope, that skirts the adverse hills.
Full well that grassy knoll he knew; for there, in summer time,
Oft had he wandered to and fro, when life was in its prime;
And thence, with early-roaming step, when the heath was bright and dewy,
Oft-times had crossed the bald grey hill, to the pines of Ballochbuie;
But now bleak rows of tumbled stones is all his sight may know,

---

168

And thus he pours the sad lament, while free the salt tears flow:—

“O woe is me! my Highland home—the thought consumes my brain—
Here, in my native Highland glen, I seek my home in vain!
The Highland glen to Highland men may be a home no more;
They drave them far, by ruthless law, across wide ocean's roar.
O heartless lords, O loveless law, with calculation cold,
Ye sold the mighty force, that glows in faithful hearts, for gold!
Ungrateful lords, with our good swords, how oft, at your command,
With heavy blow we smote the foe, and pledged for you the land!
Now in your halls ye sit at ease, and, with uncaring smile,
Ye sign the word, that bans the faithful peasant from the soil.

---

169

Who gave the broad domain to you—did man, or God in Heaven,—
That the stout tillers of the land, might from their homes be driven?
To oust the men that held the glen, through long dark years of danger,
That ye might gather gold at ease, from one hugeacred stranger?
Woe unto you, the grasping crew, that make your acres wide,
That Earth may be alone for you, with place for none beside!
Who from their humble cabins cast the meek industrious poor,
That ye may stalk the stags for sport, and scour with guns the moor!
Even at your gates the judgment waits; there is a law divine
That damns your deeds. The fine will come, though lords and lawyers join.”

The old man spake; and wiped his brow; and rose; and sate again;

---

170

For his limbs were weak with the whirling thoughts that shook his troubledbrain.
But up he rose, and, with heavy step, went slowly pacing on,
By Callater bridge, along the road that winds to Castleton,
Till he came to the ridge that skirts the hill, and the knoll of grassy green,
And the long grey rows of tumbled stones, where houses once had been;
Then sate him down, as one that loves to nurse his dreary mood,
And, after silence long, again his sad lament renewed:—

“O where be they, the merry crew, of lusty Highland men,
Then, when the stout old Farqhuarson possessed the peopled glen?
A kindly heart, I wis, had he; where'er his foot might wend,
From winding Dee to far Glenshee, the cottar called him friend.

---

171

From door to door his step was known; with oaken staff in hand
He stood, and wove the easy talk, with the tillers of the land.
No harsh reproof they feared from him, no heartless lawyer's ban;
He owned the soil, but rather owned the hearts of all the clan.
The girded quoich they brimmed for him; for him they spread the board;
The coffers of their hoarded gold they oped, to serve their lord.
O then, when lords who stalk the deer, and prince and peer, were far,
The happiest glen was Cluny then, of all the broad Braemar.
But now, O heavens! I sit beneath this stunted rowan tree,
Where all is desolate and drear, that once was joy to me.
Here, in the house where I was born, the uncropped thistle grows,
The nettle and the tansy, 'mid the tumbled stony rows;

---

172

And one big farmer holds the glen, that once did count a score,
And all that loved me once, and live, are far from Albin's shore.
Three brothers once were mine: three goodlier men ne'er trod the heather;
Their strength was like the gushing streams, their looks like sunny weather.
One crossed the Atlantic's roar, and vowed, with sweatful hard endeavour,
To make Glen Cluny's name revive, beyond St. Lawrence river;
But, o'er Quebec the glooming wing of pestilence was spread,
And he, the strongest of the strong, was numbered with the dead.
The second followed in his track, but found a briny pillow;
Alone the blazing ship went down, into the yawning billow.
The third in far Australialived, and went to dig for gold—
The cursed gold!—at Melbourne, and washed the twinkling mould;

---

173

But, as he slept, with the gathered ore beneath his pillow rolled,
A ruffian stole his noble life, and seized the gleaming gold.
And I am left. But where, O where is she, to me more dear,
That lived with me in Castleton, one happy, happy year?
My bosom's wife, my joy, my life, so bright-faced once and gay,
But, when the last sad clearing came, she pined and died away.
Her father and her mother dear, her blooming sisters three,
They went for work to Forfar town, they went to far Dundee.
Scant work they found, and ill they thrived; the thick gross-burthened air
Was poison to their mountain blood; they drooped and faded there.
The father, first, and mother died; and then the black disease,
That travels from the baleful East, with rapid scythe did seize

---

174

Two of the blooming sisters three; the third—I dare not tell—
She lived; but want had baited vice; and to that depth she fell
Whence few may rise. Such stroke on stroke of overtopping woe
Broke my wife's heart. She died; and sleeps the mountain turf below.
And now upon my native sod I'm left alone, alone,
Even as this rowan tree that nods, above the roofless stone!”

The old man wept a little space; and, while he heaved a sigh,
The hearth and blackened gable met his woeful-wandering eye:
The very mint, that in his father's garden thickly grew,
That o'er the stones redundant spread, with sorrowful ken he knew;
The mint that once, with careful hand, on Sabbath mornings bright,
His mother wont to pluck, and wrapt it in her kerchief white,

---

175

When to the kirk they went. This sight did sharper point his pain;
And forth, with harsh invective blent, his sorrow burst again:—

“By Heaven, it is a lawless land! we boast that we are free;
So is the wild cat; so the hawk; all savage things are free.
The lord is free to bind the soil, the rich to crush the poor;
The poor—God knows he hath no right to tread the trackless moor,
Lest he should fray the game! Who made the winged fowl that sweep
The measureless air, their property, whose close cold gripe doth keep
The solid acres? Not their sweat, or care, or knowledge speedeth
The crimson berries of the moor, on which the gorcock feedeth.
The wandering air, the flowing stream, the self-sown grassy sod,

---

176

They bind with laws for their own gain. Man made the laws, not God.
The flatterer of a perjured king, some hundred years ago,
Wise in the slavish arts by which smooth baseness learns to grow,
Was titled earl or duke (the foolish world is ruled by names)
With a large sweep of roods, which now by printed act he claims,
Thralled to himself, and to his brood of spendthrift heirs for ever;
While the poor labouring man, who to the great and general Giver
Stands in like right with lords, to feed soft luxury's pampered maw,
Must break the clod, and then be cast, by Britain's partial law
From the dear plot, which from the waste his sweatful toil redeemed.
And now the land, that once with groups of happy clansmen teemed,
Who with a kindly awe revered the clan's protecting head,

---

177

Lies desolate; and stranger lords, by vagrant pleasure led,
Track the lone deer; and, for the troops of stalwarth kilted men,
One farmer and one forester people the joyless glen!

O Albin! O my country! thou art great among the nations;
But thou hast sins: great glaring sins, that vex high Heaven's patience.
Thou lovest gold; and, where the kind and human heart should be,
Thou'rt dry as ashes. Thou art proud; to men of low degree
Thou dealest harsh unequal laws; and, where thy peers debate,
Ermined and surpliced slaves of wealth let beggared justice wait,
While fools debauch thy nobler sense by cant of Church and State.
O Albin! O my country! O my dear-loved Highland home,

---

178

The lust of gold hath ruined thee, the lust that ruined Rome!”