From his eyrie the eagle hath soar'd with a scream, And I wake on the edge of the cliff from my dream; -Where now is the light of thy far-beaming brow? Fleet son of the wilderness! where art thou now? -Again o'er yon crag thou return'st to my sight, Like the horns of the moon from a cloud of the night! Serene on thy travel-as soul in a dream Thou needest no bridge o'er the rush of the stream. With thy presence the pine-grove is fill'd, as with light, And the caves, as thou passest, one moment are bright. Through the arch of the rainbow that lies on the rock 'Mid the mist stealing up from the cataract's shock, Thou fling'st thy bold beauty, exulting and free, O'er a pit of grim blackness, that roars like the sea. His voyage is o'er !-As if struck by a spell Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee! Magnificent prison enclosing the free! With rock-wall encircled, with precipice crown'dWhich, awoke by the sun, thou can'st clear at a bound. 'Mid the fern and the heather kind Nature doth keep One bright spot of green for her favourite's sleep; And close to that covert, as clear as the skies When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies, Where the creature at rest can his image behold Looking up through the radiance, as bright and as bold! How lonesome! how wild! yet the wildness is rife With the stir of enjoyment-the spirit of life. The glad fish leaps up in the heart of the lake, Whose depths, at the sullen plunge, sullenly quake! Elate on the fern-branch the grasshopper sings, And away in the midst of his roundelay springs; 'Mid the flowers of the heath, not more bright than himself, The wild-bee is busy, a musical elf— Then starts from his labour, unwearied and gay, At noon sinking down on smooth wings to their haven, As if in his soul the bold Animal smiled To his friends of the sky, the joint-heirs of the wild. Yes! fierce looks thy nature, ev'n hush'd in repose In the depth of thy desert regardless of foes. In the wide-raging torrent that lends thee its roar,— Thy trust-'mid the dangers that threaten thy reign! -But what if the stag on the mountain be slain? On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay, Like a victor that falls at the close of the day— While hunter and hound in their terror retreat From the death that is spurn'd from his furious feet: And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies, As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies. High life of a hunter! he meets on the hill 'Tis his o'er the mountains to stalk like a ghost, Enshrouded with mist, in which nature is lost, Till he lifts up his eyes, and flood, valley, and height, In one moment all swim in an ocean of light; While the sun, like a glorious banner unfurl'd, Seems to wave o'er a new, more magnificent world. 'Tis his-by the mouth of some cavern his seatThe lightning of heaven to hold at his feet, While the thunder below him that growls from the cloud, To him comes on echo more awfully loud. When the clear depth of noon-tide, with glittering motion, O'erflows the lone glens-an aërial ocean- found, Lie blended in beauty that knows not a soundAs his eyes in the sunshiny solitude close 'Neath a rock of the desert in dreaming repose, He sees, in his slumbers, such visions of old As his wild Gaelic songs to his infancy told; O'er the mountains a thousand plumed hunters are borne, And he starts from his dream at the blast of the Yes! child of the desert! fit quarry were thou For the hunter that came with a crown on his brow, By princes attended with arrow and spear, And, silently built by a magical spell, Not lonely and single they pass'd o'er the height- "Fall down on your faces!-the herd is at hand!" -And onward they came like the sea o'er the sand; Like the snow from the mountain when loosen'd by rain; And rolling along with a crash to the plain; Like a thunder-split oak-tree, that falls in one shock With his hundred wide arms from the top of the rock, Like the voice of the sky, when the black cloud is near, So sudden, so loud, came the tempest of Deer. can survey The clear cloudless morn of that glorious day. And the far-ebbed grandeur rolls back to the shore. |