XXVI.

   And wild and high the ‘Cameron’s gathering’ rose,
   The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills
   Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: 
   How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills
   Savage and shrill!  But with the breath which fills
   Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
   With the fierce native daring which instils
   The stirring memory of a thousand years,
And Evan’s, Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears.

XXVII.

   And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
   Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops, as they pass,
   Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
   Over the unreturniug brave,—­alas! 
   Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
   Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
   In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
   Of living valour, rolling on the foe,
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

XXVIII.

   Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
   Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay,
   The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,
   The morn the marshalling in arms,—­the day
   Battle’s magnificently stern array! 
   The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent
   The earth is covered thick with other clay,
   Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse,—­friend, foe,—­in one red burial blent!

XXIX.

   Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine;
   Yet one I would select from that proud throng,
   Partly because they blend me with his line,
   And partly that I did his sire some wrong,
   And partly that bright names will hallow song;
   And his was of the bravest, and when showered
   The death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along,
   Even where the thickest of war’s tempest lowered,
They reached no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard!

XXX.

   There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,
   And mine were nothing, had I such to give;
   But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree,
   Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,
   And saw around me the wild field revive
   With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring
   Come forth her work of gladness to contrive,
   With all her reckless birds upon the wing,
I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring.

XXXI.