LIII.  LOCHIEL’S WARNING. (211)

Thomas Campbell, 1777-1844, was a descendant of the famous clan of Campbells, in Kirnan, Scotland, and was born at Glasgow.  At the age of thirteen he entered the university in that city, from which he graduated with distinction, especially as a Greek scholar; his translations of Greek tragedy were considered without parallel in the history of the university.  During the first year after graduation, he wrote several poems of minor importance.  He then removed to Edinburgh and adopted literature as his profession; here his “Pleasures of Hope” was published in 1799, and achieved immediate success.  He traveled extensively on the continent, and during his absence wrote “Lochiel’s Warning,” “Hohenlinden,” and other minor poems.  In 1809 he published “Gertrude of Wyoming;” from 1820 to 1830 he edited the “New Monthly Magazine.”  In 1826 he was chosen lord rector of the University of Glasgow, to which office he was twice reelected.  He was active in founding the University of London.  During the last years of his life he produced but little of note.  He died at Boulogne, in France.  During most of his life he was in straitened pecuniary circumstances, and ill-health and family afflictions cast a melancholy over his later years.  His poems were written with much care, and are uniformly smooth and musical. ###

Seer.  Lochiel!  Lochiel! beware of the day
      When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! 
      For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
      And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight. 
      They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown;
      Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down! 
      Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
      And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain. 
      But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,
      What steed to the desert flies frantic and far? 
      ’T is thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await
      Like a love-lighted watch fire all night at the gate. 
      A steed comes at morning,—­no rider is there,
      But its bridle is red with the sign of despair. 
      Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led! 
      Oh, weep! but thy tears can not number the dead: 
      For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,—­
      Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.

Loch.  Go preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer! 
      Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,
      Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight,
      This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.

Seer.  Ha! laugh’st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn? 
      Proud bird of the mountain thy plume shall be torn! 
      Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth
      From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the north? 
      Lo! the death shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode