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At once she strikes with a dreadful shock,
Oh Christ! she strikes on the Inch Cape rock.
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
And curs'd himself in his despair.
The shock has made an opening wide,
The waves rush in on every side;
Yet even in that hour of fear,
One only sound could the rover hear,
A sound, as if with the Inch Cape bell
The fiends below were ringing his knell.

FRAGMENT,

COMPOSED BY MOONLIGHT.”

O LONELY is the woodland scene,
For the month is leafy June;
And the lake is sleeping still, serene,
Beneath the silvery moon.

Far off the herds are browsing seen,
For they shun the lake with fear;
And the shepherd flies yon groves between,
For he dare not venture here.

And all around this lonely place

No step is heard, nor cry,

And the moon-beam in the water's face

Is trembling silently.

But loudly blew the autumnal breeze
Around Kincardine's tower ;

It shower'd the foliage from the trees
In the witch Finella's bower.

And wildly on the mountain's side,

Through gathering tempests stern,

*The murder of Kenneth II., King of Scotland, by Finella, of whom many wo ders are related, is well known. These lines are founded on some erroneous trad tions, still related in the parishes of Fettercairn and Garvock, regarding the mante of that murder, and the witch's subsequent death.

1

By fits the moonbeam was descried
On rock and withered fern.

Then from her bower Finella fled,
Beneath Kincardine's tower;

Through bush and brake she trembling sped,
While the storm began to lower.

The fiends forbade the witch to rest,
For her hour of fate was come;
A stifling flame consumed her breast,
As she wander'd through the gloom.

And faster now, through moss and mire,
With hurried step she flew ;
While goblins, robed in flames of fire,
Her footsteps did pursue.

And onward still, by Fordoun's hill,
And Thornton's tower they past;
With shrieks the peaceful woods they fill,
And load the midnight blast.

And onward still their course they hold,
With many an echoing cry;

While on her brow stood deadly chill
The drops of agony.

On Garvock's lonely moor, the lake
Shone to the lightning's flash;
With iron grasp the witch they take,
And mid the billows dash.

For they knew the lake accursed, where once The monarch's corse was thrown;

And they bade the witch her crimes renounce, Where her foulest deed was done.

Still mid the lonely shades at even
Dire shapes are seen to rise;
And oft, on passing breezes driven,
Are heard unearthly cries.

But to me the haunted scenes are dear,
When summer evening mild

Revives the supernatural cheer,

With which my lone hours are beguiled.

Then sweetly on the water's face
The trembling moonbeams play;
While dreams celestial rise apace,
To cheer my lingering way.

VERSES,

BY MR SURTEES, MAINSFORTH.

AND shall the minstrel harp in silence rest

By silver Tweed, or Yarrow hung with flowers;
Or where, reflected on Loch Katrine's breast,
High o'er the pine-clad hills Benledi towers;
Save when the blast that sweeps the mountain crest,
Wakes the wild chorus of Æolian song;

Save when at twilight grey the dewy west

Strays with soft touch the trembling chords among; Whilst as the notes with wayward cadence rise,

Some love-lorn maniac's plaint seems swelling to the skies?

Thrice has she flung her witch-notes on the gale,
Swept by the master of the mighty mood,
And thrice has raptured echo caught the tale

From hill, from dell, from tower, and haunted wood:

And if for aye the magic numbers fail,

With them shall fancy quit the woodlands sear; And every genius, wreathed with primrose pale, From his wan brow the withered chaplet tear. Hark! fairy shrieks are heard in

every glade,

And Scotland's wild-rose bowers and glens of hawthorn fade.

Yet once again the magic lyre shall ring,

An exil'd prince demands the lofty strain,

And Scotland's falchion drawn to fence her king,
And clans embattled on their native plain;
The Stuarts' heir demands his father's reign,
And Highland loyalty, with dauntless truth,
Welcomes the wanderer from the lonely main,
And to her bleeding bosom clasps the youth.

The warning sprite was heard on lake and hill,

And thrice the bittern shriek'd, and echo clamour'd shrill.

Lives there the man to party-rage a prey,

Can blame the noble, blame the generous part; Can bid cold interest o'er the passions sway,

And freeze the life-blood streaming from the heart?
Far be from such my hand, my heart away:
Though all mistaken be the clansman's creed,
Yet sure where kindred fealty led the way,

Bright was the path, and gallant was the deed!
The chieftain calls, with shouts the clan reply,
Nor heed the low'ring storm that veils the southern sky.

Wild music peals, the clansman grasps his glaive,
And Gladesmuir owns that faulchion's deadly sway;
Hide, hapless Albyn, hide fair honour's grave,
And deepest horrors shroud Drummossie's day!
And bid thy broadest darkest forest's wave
Conceal his mountain path, his lowly bed;

And bid each mist-clad hill, each dropping cave,

Shed "dews and wild flowers" on the wanderer's head. Ah! bathe in drops of balm his fever'd brain ;

Ah! hide the murder'd friend, the ghastly spectre train.

LEGENDARY BALLAD.

THE bale is up, the bugles call,
The signal speeds along ;

From hill and dale, from hut and hall,
The ready clansmen throng.

He's don'd his targe, he's slung his bow,

He's grasp'd his massy glaive;

His bride, one kiss before he go

To join his clansmen brave.

"O go not forth, my lord, my life,
O go not forth, I pray!

Thy kinsmen true will quell the strife,

Ó go not forth to-day!

"Last night a fearful dream I dream'd;
Yon oak that shades the lea,

Pride of an hundred summers, seem'd
In one wide blaze to be.

"Its goodly boughs, its foliage fair,
Its rough trunk's stately swell,
All blasted by the flame, and bare,
A crumbling mass it fell

"Then go not forth, my lord, my life,
O go not forth, I pray!

Thy kinsmen true will quell the strife,
O go not forth to-day!

"Last night, as on the turrets high
I stood, a blazing ball

Shot sudden down the starless sky,
Seemed on these towers to fall;

"And downward dash'd with shiv'ring shock,
At midnight's hour amain,
A fragment from the fatal rock ⭑

Lies buried in the plain.

"With boding swell Teith's angry wave
Has deluged all the mead;

The wonted sign, when chieftains brave
Of Ogan's line must bleed.

"Last night, adown the moonless dale,
Where winds the chapel way,
The fatal lights, with lustre pale,
By fits were seen to play.

"And slowly o'er the twilight heath
By gifted eyes were seen,

With wail and woe, the train of death,
A warrior's corse between.

"Then go not forth, my lord, my life,
O go not forth, I pray!

Thy kinsmen true will quell the strife,
O go not forth to-day!"

The natives of Aberfoyle, in Perthshire, have a superstitious tradition, that when a portion of a certain rock in that neighbourhood falls to the plain, it denotes the approaching death of some Graham of distinction. And when the river Teith overflows the beautiful peninsula of Little Lennie, near Callender, where the burying place of the Buchanans is situated, the immediate death of some person of that name is expected as the infallible consequence.

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