Than at midnight, from their eyrie,
    Scared the eagles of Glencoe;
  Louder than the screams that mingled
    With the howling of the blast,
  When the murderer’s steel was clashing,
    And the fires were rising fast;
  When thy noble father bounded
    To the rescue of his men,
  And the slogan of our kindred
    Pealed throughout the startled glen;
  When the herd of frantic women
    Stumbled through the midnight snow,
  With their fathers’ houses blazing,
    And their dearest dead below. 
  Oh, the horror of the tempest,
    As the flashing drift was blown,
  Crimsoned with the conflagration,
    And the roofs went thundering down! 
  Oh, the prayers—­the prayers and curses
    That together winged their flight
  From the maddened hearts of many
    Through that long and woeful night! 
  Till the fires began to dwindle,
    And the shots grew faint and few,
  And we heard the foeman’s challenge
    Only in a far halloo;
  Till the silence once more settled
    O’er the gorges of the glen,
  Broken only by the Cona
    Plunging through its naked den. 
  Slowly from the mountain-summit
    Was the drifting veil withdrawn,
  And the ghastly valley glimmered
    In the gray December dawn. 
  Better had the morning never
    Dawned upon our dark despair! 
  Black amidst the common whiteness
    Rose the spectral ruins there: 
  But the sight of these was nothing
    More than wrings the wild dove’s breast,
  When she searches for her offspring
    Round the relics of her nest. 
  For in many a spot the tartan
    Peered above the wintry heap,
  Marking where a dead Macdonald
    Lay within his frozen sleep. 
  Tremblingly we scooped the covering
    From each kindred victim’s head,
  And the living lips were burning
    On the cold ones of the dead. 
  And I left them with their dearest—­
    Dearest charge had everyone—­
  Left the maiden with her lover,
    Left the mother with her son. 
  I alone of all was mateless—­
    Far more wretched I than they,
  For the snow would not discover
    Where my lord and husband lay. 
  But I wandered up the valley
    Till I found him lying low,
  With the gash upon his bosom,
    And the frown upon his brow—­
  Till I found him lying murdered
    Where he wooed me long ago. 
  Woman’s weakness shall not shame me;
    Why should I have tears to shed? 
  Could I rain them down like water,
    O my hero, on thy head,
  Could the cry of lamentation
    Wake thee from thy silent sleep,
  Could it set thy heart a-throbbing,
    It were mine to wail and weep. 
  But I will not waste my sorrow,
    Lest the Campbell women say
  That the daughters of Clanranald
    Are as weak and frail as they. 
  I had wept thee hadst thou fallen,