Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;
      But down let him stoop from his havoc on high! 
      Ah! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh. 
      Why flames the far summit?  Why shoot to the blast
      Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast? 
      ’T is the fire shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
      From his eyrie that beacons the darkness of heaven,
      O crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
      Whose banners arise on the battlements’ height,
      Heaven’s fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
      Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return! 
      For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
      And a wild mother scream o’er her famishing brood.

Loch.  False wizard, avaunt!  I have marshaled my clan,
      Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one! 
      They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
      And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. 
      Then welcome be Cumberland’s steed to the shock! 
      Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock! 
      But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
      When Albin her claymore indignantly draws;
      When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
      Clanronald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
      All plaided and plumed in their tartan array—­

Seer. —­Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day! 
      For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
      But man can not cover what God would reveal: 
      ’T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
      And coming events cast their shadows before. 
      I tell thee, Culloden’s dread echoes shall ring
      With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king. 
      Lo! anointed by heaven with the vials of wrath,
      Behold where he flies on his desolate path! 
      Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight: 
      Rise, rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight! 
      ’Tis finished.  Their thunders are hushed on the moors;
      Culloden is lost, and my country deplores. 
      But where is the ironbound prisoner?  Where? 
      For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. 
      Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banished, forlorn,
      Like a limb from his country, cast bleeding and torn? 
      Ah no! for a darker departure is near;
      The war drum is muffled, and black is the bier;
      His death bell is tolling; O mercy, dispel
      Yon sight that it freezes my spirit to tell! 
      Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs,
      And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims. 
      Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet,
      Where his heart shall be thrown ere it ceases to beat,
      With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale—­