'Tis thine, oh Glenullin! whose bride shall await,

Like a love lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.

A steed comes at morning: no rider is there;

But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.

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Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!

Oh weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead: For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,

Culloden, that reeks with the blood of the brave.

LOCHIEL.

Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer! Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,

Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight,

This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.

The Gaelic appellation of Scotland: more particularly the Highlands.

WIZARD.

Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?

Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn! Say, rush'd the bold eagle exultingly forth,

From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad:

But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed-for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?

'Tis the fire-show'r of ruin, all dreadfully driven

From his eyrie, that beacons the darkness of Heaven.

Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,

Whose banners arise on the battlements height,

Heav'n's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;

Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,

And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.

LOCHIEL.

False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshall'd my clan:
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
When Albion her claymore indignantly draws;
When her bonnetted chieftains to victory crowd,

Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud;

All plaided and plumed in their tartan array——

WIZARD.

Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day!

For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would reveal:
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.

I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring
With the bloodhounds, that bark for thy fugitive king.
Lo! Anointed by Heav'n with the vials of wrath,
Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!

Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight:

Rise! Rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!...

'Tis finish'd. Their thunders are hush'd on the moors;

Culloden is lost, and my country deplores;

But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where?

For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.

Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banish'd forlorn,
Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn'?
Ah no! for a darker departure is near;

The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier;
His death-bell is tolling; Oh! mercy, dispel

Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters convuls'd in his quivering limbs,

And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims.

* An English historian, after enumerating the severe executions of the Highland rebels, at Culloden, Carlisle, and elsewhere, concludes by informing us, that thousands experienced his majesty's mercy, in being transported for life to the plantations!