I knew her, O brother, I knew her full well!
Of that once fair name such a tale I could tell
As would thrill thy bold heart; but how long she remained,
So racked was my spirit, my bosom so pained,
I knew not, but ages seemed short to the while.
Though, proffer the Highlands, nay, all the green isle,
With length of existence no man can enjoy,
The same to endure, the dread proffer I'd fly!
The thrice-threatened pangs of last night to forego,
Macgregor would dive to the mansions below.
Despairing and mad, to futurity blind,
The present to shun and some respite to find,
I swore, ere the shadow fell east from the pile,
To meet her alone by the brook of Glen-Gyle.
"She told me, and turned my chilled heart to a stone,
The glory and name of Macgregor was gone;
That the pine which for ages had shed a bright halo
Afar on the mountains of Highland Glen-Falo,
Should wither and fall ere the turn of yon moon,
Smit through by the canker of hated Colquhoun:
That a feast on Macgregors each day day should be common
For years to the eagles of Lennox and Lomond.
"A parting embrace, in one moment she gave: Her breath was a furnace, her bosom the grave; Then flitting elusive, she said, with a frown, "The mighty Macgregor shall yet be my own?"" "Macgregor, thy fancies are wild as the wind; The dreams of the night have disordered thy mind. Come, buckle thy panoply-march to the field.See, brother, how hacked are thy helmet and shield. Ay that was M'Nab, in the height of his pride, When the lions of Dochart stood firm by his side. This night the proud chief his presumption shall rue; Rise, brother, these chinks in his heart-blood will glue; Thy fantasies frightful shall flit on the wing, When loud with thy bugle Glen-Lyon shall ring."
Like glimpse of the moon through the storm of the night,
Macgregor's red eye shed one sparkle of light:
It-faded-it darkened-he shuddered-he sighed,—
"No! not for the universe!" low he replied.
Away went Macgregor, but went not alone;
To watch the dread rendezvous, Malcolm has gone.
They oared the broad Lomond, so still and serene!
And deep in her bosom, how awful the scene!
O'er mountains inverted the blue waters curled,
And rocked them on skies of a far nether world.
All silent they went, for the time was approaching;
The moon the blue zenith already was touching;
No foot was abroad on the forest or hill,
No sound but the lullaby sung by the rill;
Young Malcolm, at distance, crouched, trembling the while,Macgregor stood lone by the brook of Glen-Gyle.
Few minutes had past ere they spied on the stream, A skiff sailing light, where a lady did seem;
Her sail was the web of a gossamer's loom,
The glow-worm her wakelight, the rainbow her boom;
A dim rayless beam was her prow and her mast,
Like wolde-fire at midnight, that glares on the waste.
Though rough was the river with rock and cascade,
No torrent, no rock, her velocity stayed:
She whimpled the water to weather and lee,
And heaved as if borne on the waves of the sea.
Mute nature was roused in the bounds of the glen;
The wild deer of Gairtney abandoned his den,
Fled panting away over river and isle,
Nor once turned his eye to the brook of Glen-Gyle.
The fox fled in terror, the eagle awoke,
As slumbering he dozed on the shelf of the rock;
Astonished to hide in the moonbeam he flew,
And screwed the night-heaven till lost in the blue.
Young Malcolm beheld the pale lady approach,
The chieftain salute her, and shrink from her touch.
He saw the Macgregor kneel down on the plain,
As begging for something he could not obtain;
She raised him indignant, derided his stay,
Then bore him on board, set her sail and away.
Though fast the red bark down the river did glide,
Yet faster ran Malcolm adown by its side;
"Macgregor! Macgregor!" he bitterly cried:
"Macgregor! Macgregor!" the echoes replied.
He struck at the lady, but strange though it seem,
His sword only fell on the rocks and the stream:
But the groans from the boat that ascended the main,
Were groans from a bosom in horror and pain.-
They reached the dark lake, and bore lightly away,
Macgregor is vanished for ever and aye!
THE American Poets are English in everything but their scenery. They have retained all the best characteristics of English literature, -freedom of thought, daring energy, manly feeling, and pathos never degenerating into sickly sentimentality. The memory of their recent struggle for independence has made many of them hostile to the political power of England, but none inimical to its literary preeminence. They know that they cannot hope to rival the fame of Shakspeare or Milton, and they have, therefore, made the fame of these poets part of their own; regarding them, as indeed they are, the common property of all who speak the English language.
Is a native of the state of New York. He first became distinguished as a humorous writer, and displayed great comic powers. His great poem, The Backwoodsman, published in 1818, is more valuable for its faithful delineation of American scenery and manners, than for higher qualifications. It was a hasty and imperfect work, rather showing what its author could do, if he bestowed more pains, than giving the world a fair opportunity of estimating his powers.
THE BACKWOODSMAN.
OUR Basil beat the lazy sun next day,
And bright and early had been on his way,
But that the world he saw e'en yesternight,
Seemed faded like a vision from his sight.
One endless chaos spread before his eyes,
No vestige left of earth or azure skies,
A boundless nothingness reigned everywhere,
Hid the green fields, and silent all the air.
As looked the traveller for the world below,
The lively morning-breeze began to blow,
The magic curtain rolled in mists away,
And a gay landscape laughed upon the day.
As light the fleeting vapours upward glide,
Like sheeted spectres on the mountain-side,
New objects open to his wondering view,
Of various forms and combinations new.
A rocky precipice, a waving wood,
Deep-winding dell, and foaming mountain flood,
Each after each, with coy and sweet delay,
Broke on his sight, as at young dawn of day,
Bounded afar by peak aspiring bold,
Like giant capped with helm of burnished gold.
So when the wandering grandsire of our race
On Ararat had found a resting-place,
At first a shoreless ocean met his eye,
Mingling on every side with one blue sky;
But as the waters, every passing day,
Sunk in the earth, or rolled in mists away,
Gradual, the lofty hills, like islands, peep
From the rough bosom of the boundless deep;
Then the round hillocks, and the meadows green
Each after each, in freshened bloom are seen,
Till, at the last, a fair and finished whole
Combined to win the gazing patriarch's soul.
Yet oft he looked, I ween, with anxious eye,
In lingering hope somewhere, perchance, to spy
Within the silent world, some living thing,
Crawling on earth, or moving on the wing,
Or man, or beast! Alas! was neither there,
Nothing that breathed of life in earth or air;
'Twas a vast silent mansion, rich and gay,
Whose occupant was drowned the other day;
A churchyard, where the gayest flowers oft bloom
Amid the melancholy of the tomb;
A charnel-house, where all the human race
Had piled their bones in one wide resting-place;
Sadly he turned from such a sight of woe,
And sadly sought the lifeless world below.
Is the Felicia Hemans of America; she does not possess the high chivalrous spirit of the English poetess; but, in its place, she evinces a more lively perception of the beauties of nature.
THE CORAL INSECT.
TOIL on! toil on! ye ephemeral' train,
Who build in the tossing and treacherous main;
Toil on,-for the wisdom of man ye mock,
With your sand-based structures and domes of rock
1 ephemeral, living only a day.
Your columns the fathomless fountains lave,
And your arches spring up to the crested wave;
Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear
A fabric so vast in a realm so drear.
Ye bind the deep with your secret zone,
The ocean is sealed and the surge a stone;
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement spring,
Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king";
The turf looks green where the breakers rolled;
O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold;
The sea-snatched isle is the home of men,
And mountains exult where the wave hath been.
But why do ye plant, 'neath the billows dark,
The wrecking reef for the gallant bark?
There are snares enough on the tented field,
'Mid the blossomed sweets that the valleys yield;
There are serpents to coil, ere the flowers are up;
There's a poison-drop in man's purest cup;
There are foes that watch for his cradle-breath,
And why need ye sow the floods with death?
With mouldering bones the deeps are white,
From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright;
The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold
With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold,
And the gods of ocean have frowned to see
The mariner's bed in their halls of glee;
Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must spread
The boundless sea for the thronging dead?
Ye build, ye build-but ye enter not in,
Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin;
From the land of promise ye fade and die,
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your weary eye;
As the kings of the cloud-crowned pyramid
Their noteless bones in oblivion hid;
Ye slumber unmarked 'mid the desolate main,
While the wonder and pride of your works remain.
DEATH found strange beauty on that cherub brow,
And dashed it out. There was a tint of rose
On cheek and lip; he touched the veins with ice,
And the rose faded. Forth from those blue eyes
2 Assyria's king, Nebuchadnezzar.
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