Madness--madness! Why this shrinking?
Were we less inured to war
When our reapers swept the harvest
From the field of red Dunbar?
Bring my horse, and blow the trumpet!
Call the riders of Fitz-James:
Let Lord Lewis head the column!
Valiant chiefs of mighty names--
Trusty Keppoch, stout Glengarry,
Gallant Gordon, wise Locheill--
Bid the clansmen hold together,
Fast, and fell, and firm as steel.
Elcho, never look so gloomy--
What avails a saddened brow?
Heart, man, heart! we need it sorely,
Never half so much, as now.
Had we but a thousand troopers,
Had we but a thousand more!
Noble Perth, I hear them coming!--
Hark! the English cannons' roar.
God! how awful sounds that volley,
Bellowing through the mist and rain!
Was not that the Highland slogan?
Let me hear that shout again!
Oh, for prophet eyes to witness
How the desperate battle goes!
Cumberland! I would not fear thee,
Could my Camerons see their foes.
Sound, I say, the charge at venture--
'Tis not naked steel we fear;
Better perish in the melee
Than be shot like driven deer;
Hold! the mist begins to scatter!
There in front 'tis rent asunder,
And the cloudy bastion crumbles
Underneath the deafening thunder;
There I see the scarlet gleaming!
Now, Macdonald--now or never!--
Woe is me, the clans are broken!
Father, thou art lost for ever!
Chief and vassal, lord and yeoman,
There they lie in heaps together,
Smitten by the deadly volley,
Rolled in blood upon the heather;
And the Hanoverian horsemen,
Fiercely riding to and fro,
Deal their murderous strokes at random.--
Ah, my God! where am I now?
Will that baleful vision never
Vanish from my aching sight?
Must those scenes and sounds of terror
Haunt me still by day and night?
Yea, the earth hath no oblivion
For the noblest chance it gave,
None, save in its latest refuge--
Seek it only in the grave!
Love may die, and hatred slumber,
And their memory will decay,
As the watered garden recks not
Of the drought of yesterday;
But the dream of power once broken,
What shall give repose again?
What shall charm the serpent-furies
Coiled around the maddening brain?
What kind draught can nature offer
Strong enough to lull their sting?
Better to be born a peasant
Than to live an exiled king!
Oh, these yea