His shallop to the shore he steer'd,

And took the fliers in.

And while against the tide and wind
Hans stoutly row'd his way,
The noble to his follower sign'd

He should the boatman slay.

The fisher's back was to them turn'd, The squire his dagger drew,

Hans saw his shadow in the lake,

The boat he overthrew.

He whelm'd the boat, and as they strove, He stunn'd them with his oar;

"Now drink ye deep, my gentle sirs,

You'll ne'er stab boatman more.

"Two gilded fishes in the lake

This morning have I caught,

Their silver scales may much avail, Their carrion flesh is naught."

It was a messenger of wo

Has sought the Austrian land; "Ah! gracious lady, evil news! My lord lies on the strand.

"At Sempach, on the battle field,

His bloody corpse lies there."
"Ah, gracious God!" the lady cried,
What tidings of despair!"

Now would you know the minstrel wight,
Who sings of strife so stern,
Albert the Souter is he hight,
A burgher of Lucerne.

A merry man was he, I wot,
The night he made the lay,
Returning from the bloody spot
Where God had judged the day.

THE MAID OF TORO.

O LOW shone the sun on the fair lake of Toro, And weak were the whispers that waved the dark wood,

Had we a difference with some petty isle,

Or with our neighbours, Britons, for our landmarks,
The taking in of some rebellious lord,
Or making head against a slight commotion,
After a day of blood peace might be argued :
But where we grapple for the land we live on,
The liberty we hold more dear than life,
The gods we worship, and, next these, our honours,
And, with those, swords that know no end of battle-
Those men, beside themselves, allow no neighbour,
Those minds, that, where the day is claim inheritance,
And, where the sun makes ripe the fruit, their harvest,
And where they march but measure out more ground
To add to Rome-

It must not be.-No! as they are our foes,
Let's use the peace of honour-that's fair dealing;
But in our hands our swords. The hardy Roman,
That thinks to graft himself into my stock,
Must first begin his kindred under ground,
And be allied in ashes.

Bonduca.

THE following war-song was written during the apprehension of an invasion. The corps of volunteers, to which it was addressed, was raised in 1797, consisting of gentlemen, mounted and armed at their own expense. It still subsists, as the Right Troop of the Royal Mid-Lothian Light Cavalry, commanded by the honourable Lieutenant-colonel

flood.

arming freemen in defence of their own rights, was

ing;

Sweet virgin! who hearest the suppliant's cry; Now grant my petition, in anguish ascending, My Henry restore, or let Eleanor die !

All distant and faint were the sounds of the battle, With the breezes they rise, with the breezes they fail,

Till the shout, and the groan, and the conflict's dread rattle,

And the chase's wild clamour, came loading the gale.

Breathless she gazed on the woodlands so dreary; Slowly approaching a warrior was seen;

furnished a force of 3000 armed and disciplined volunteers, including a regiment of cavalry, from the city and county, and two corps of artillery, each capable of serving twelve guns. To such a force, above all others, might, in similar circumstances, be applied the exhortation of our ancient Galgacus: "Proinde ituri in aciem, et majores vestros et posteros cogitate."

To horse! to horse! the standard flies,
The bugles sound the call;
The Gallic navy stems the seas,
The voice of battle's on the breeze,
Arouse ye, one and all!

From high Dunedin's towers we come,

A band of brothers true;

Our casques the leopard's spoils surround; With Scotland's hardy thistle crown'd, We boast the red and blue.*

Though tamely crouch to Gallia's frown
Dull Holland's tardy train;

Their ravish'd toys though Romans mourn,
Though gallant Switzers vainly spurn,
And foaming gnaw the chain;

O! had they mark'd th' avenging callt Their brethren's murder gave, Disunion ne'er their ranks had mown, Nor patriot valour, desperate grown, Sought freedom in the grave!

Shall we, too, bend the stubborn head,
In freedom's temple born,
Dress our pale cheeks in timid smile,
To hail a master in our isle,

Or brook a victor's scorn?

No though destruction o'er the land Come pouring as a flood,

The sun that sees our falling day Shall mark our sabres' deadly sway, And set that night in blood.

For gold let Gallia's legions fight,
Or plunder's bloody gain;

Unbribed, unbought, our swords we draw,
To guard our king, to fence our law,
Nor shall their edge be vain.

If ever breath of British gale
Shall fan the tri-colour,

Or footstep of invader rude,

With rapine foul, and red with blood, Pollute our happy shore

'Then farewell home! and farewell friends! Adieu each tender tie!

Resolved, we mingle in the tide,
Where charging squadrons furious ride,
To conquer or to die.

To horse to horse! the sabres gleam;
High sounds our bugle call;
Combined by honour's sacred tie,
Our word is, Laws and Liberty!
March forward, one and all!

MAC-GREGOR'S GATHERING.

WRITTEN FOR ALBYN'S ANTHOLOGY. Air-Thain' a Grigalach.*

THESE verses are adapted to a very wild, yet lively gathering-tune, used by the Mac-Gregors. The severe treatment of this clan, their outlawry, and the proscription of their very name, are alluded to in the ballad.

THE moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae,

And the clan has a name that is nameless by day! Then gather, gather, gather, Gregalach! Gather, gather, gather, &c.

Our signal for fight, that from monarchs we drew, Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo! Then haloo, Gregalach! haloo, Gregalach! Haloo, haloo, haloo, Gregalach, &c.

Glen Orchy's proud mountains, Coalchuirn and her towers,

Glenstrae and Glenlyon no longer are ours:

We're landless, landless, landless, Gregalach!
Landless, landless, landless, &c.

But doom'd and devoted by vassal and lord
Mac-Gregor has still both his heart and his sword!
Then courage, courage, courage, Gregalach!
Courage, courage, courage, &c.

If they rob us of name, and pursue us with beagles, Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the eagles!

Then vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, Gregalach!

Vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, &c.

While there's leaves in the forest, and foam on the river,

Mac-Gregor, despite them, shall flourish for ever! Come then, Gregalach! come then, Gregalach! Come then, come then, come then, &c. Through the depths of Loch Katrine the steed shall

The royal colours.

†The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss guards, on the fatal 10th of August, 1792. It is painful, but not useless, to remark, that the passive temper with which the Swiss regarded the death of their bravest countrymen, mercilessly slaughtered in discharge of their duty, encou raged and authorized the progressive injustice by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people upon the continent, have, at length, been converted into the citadel of a foreign and military despot. A state degraded is half enslaved.

MACKRIMMON'S LAMENT.

Air-Cha till mi tuille.†

MACKRIMMON, hereditary piper to the laird of Macleod, is said to have composed this lament when the clan was about to depart upon a distant

"The Mac-Gregor is come."
"We return no more."

and dangerous expedition. The minstrel was impressed with a belief, which the event verified, that he was to be slain in the approaching feud; and hence the Gaelic words," Cha till mi tuille; ged thillis Macleod, cha till Macrimmon,” never return; although Macleod returns, yet Mack," "I shall rimmon shall never return!" The piece is but too well known, from its being the strain with which the emigrants from the west highlands and isles usually take leave of their native shore.

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The

the head of an army superior to his own. words of the set theme, or melody, to which the pipe variations are applied, run thus in Gaelic: Piobaireachd Dhonuil, piobaireachd Dhonuil; Piobaireachd Dhonuil Duidh, piobaireachd Dhonuil; Piobaireachd Dhonuil Duidh, piobaireachd Dhonuil; Piob agus bratach air faiche Inverlochi. The pipe summons of Donald the Black, The pipe summons of Donald the Black, The war-pipe and the pennon are on the gathering-placa at Inverlochy.

Tempest clouds prolong'd the sway
Of timeless darkness over day;
Whirlwind, thunderclap, and shower,
Mark'd it a predestined hour.
Broad and frequent through the night
Flash'd the sheets of levin light;
Muskets, glancing lightnings back,
Show'd the dreary bivouack

Where the soldier lay,

Chill and stiff, and drench'd with rain,
Wishing dawn of morn again,
Though death should come with day.
'Tis at such a tide and hour,

Wizard, witch, and fiend have power,

And ghastly forms through mist and shower,
Gleam on the gifted ken;

And then th' affrighted prophet's ear
Drinks whispers strange of fate and fear,
Presaging death and ruin near
Among the sons of men.
Apart from Albyn's war-array,
'Twas then gray Allan sleepless lay;
Gray Allan, who for many a day,

Had follow'd stout and stern,
Where through battle's rout and reel,
Storm of shout and hedge of steel,
Led the grandson of Lochiel,

And still their ghastly roundelay Was of the coming battle-fray, And of the destined dead.

SONG.

Wheel the wild dance,
While lightnings glance,

And thunders rattle loud, And call the brave

To bloody grave,

To sleep without a shroud.

Our airy feet,

So light and fleet,

They do not bend the rye,

That sinks its head when whirlwinds rave,

And swells again in eddying wave,

As each wild gust blows by; But still the corn,

At dawn of morn,

Our fatal steps that bore,

At eve lies waste,

A trampled paste

Of blackening mud and gore.

And call the brave

To bloody grave,

To sleep without a shroud.

Burst, ye clouds, in tempest showers,
Redder rain shall soon be ours-

See, the east grows wan-
Yield we place to sterner game,
Ere deadlier bolts and drearer flame
Shall the welkin's thunders shame;
Elemental rage is tame

To the wrath of man.

At morn, gray Allan's mates with awe
Heard of the vision'd sights he saw,

The legend heard him say:
But the seer's gifted eye was dim,
Deafen'd his ear, and stark his limb,
Ere closed that bloody day.

He sleeps far from his highland heath-
But often of the Dance of Death

His comrades tell the tale

On piquet-post, when ebbs the night,
And waning watch-fires grow less bright,
And dawn is glimmering pale.

sorrow,

morrow,

Till forgot in the strain was the grief of to-day! But when friends drop around us in life's weary

waning,

suage;

Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining,

The languor of pain, and the chillness of age.

'Twas thou that once taught me, in accents bewailing,

To sing how a warrior lay stretch'd on the plain, And a maiden hung o'er him with aid unavailing, And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain ; As vain those enchantments, O queen of wild numbers,

To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o'er, And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers. Farewell then! Enchantress! I meet thee no

more.

And thou, little guardian, alone stretch'd before him,

Unhonour'd the pilgrim from life should depart?

When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,

The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hali;

With 'scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,
And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:
Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches
are gleaming;

In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beam-
ing;
Far adown the lone aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.