Now in darkness and billows he sweeps from my sight:

Rise, rise, ye wild tempests, and cover his flight! 'Tis finished! Their thunders are hushed 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, banished, 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 convulsed in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims.
Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to
beat,

With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale▬▬

LOCHIEL.

-Down, soothless insulter, I trust not the tale! For never shall Albin a destiny meet

So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat. Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore,

Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,
Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,

While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of
fame!

Thomas Campbell.

130

THE SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST

BATTLE

WARRIORS and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword

Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,

Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow,
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet!
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.

Farewell to others, but never we part,

Heir to my royalty, son of my heart!
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!

Lord Byron.

131

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB

THE Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the

sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is

green,

That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath

blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord. Lord Byron.

132

THE MARINERS OF ENGLAND

YE Mariners of England,

That guard our native seas,

Whose flag has braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!

Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!

And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every wave!-

For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;

Her march is o'er the mountain-waves,

Her home is on the deep.

With thunders from her native oak,

She quells the floods below,

As they roar on the shore,

When the stormy winds do blow;

When the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy winds do blow.

The meteor flag of England

Shall yet terrific burn;

Till danger's troubled night depart,

And the star of peace return.

Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,

When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.

Thomas Campbell.

133

ENGLAND'S DUTY

(Written in November, 1806.)

ANOTHER year! another deadly blow!
Another mighty Empire overthrown!
And we are left, or shall be left, alone;
The last that dare to struggle with the foe.
'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know
That in ourselves our safety must be sought;
That by our own right hands it must be wrought,
That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low.
Oh dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer!
We shall exult, if they who rule the land
Be men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand.
William Wordsworth.

134

BONNY DUNDEE

To the Lords of Convention 'twas Claver'se who

spoke,

'Ere the King's crown shall fall there are crowns to be broke;