4

      Triumphant in its pain:—­
   Then the old days of Holyrood halls return’d
   The leaden lethargy from his soul he spurn’d,
      And was the Prince again:—­
   All Scotland waking in him; all her bold
Chieftains and clans:—­and all their tale, and his, he told: 

5

—­Told how, o’er the boisterous seas
From faithless France he danced his way
Where Alban’s thousand islands lay,
The kelp-strown ridge of the lone Hebrides:—­
How down each strath they stream’d as springtide rills,
When he to Finnan vale
Came from Glenaladale,
And that snow-handful grew an avalanche of the hills.

6

There Lochiel, Glengarry there,
Macdonald, Cameron:  souls untried
In war, but stout in mountain-pride
All odds against all worlds to laugh and dare: 
Unpurchaseable faith of chief and clan! 
Enough!  Their Prince has thrown
Himself upon his own! 
By hearts not heads they count, and manhood measures man!

7

—­Torrent from Lochaber sprung,
Through Badenoch bare and Athole turn’d,
The fettering Forth o’erpast and spurn’d,
Then on the smiling South in fury flung;
Now gather head with all thine affluent force,
Draw forth the wild mellay! 
At Gladsmuir is the fray;
Scotland ’gainst England match’d:  White Rose against White Horse!

8

Cluster’d down the slope they go,
Red clumps of ragged valour, down,
While morn-mists yet the hill-top crown:—­
Clan Colla! on!—­the Camerons touch the foe! 
One touch!—­the battle breaks, the fight is fought,
As summit-boulders glide
Riddling the forest-side,
And in one moment’s crash an army melts to nought!

9

—­Ah gay nights of Holyrood! 
Star-eyes of Scotland’s fairest fair,
Sun-glintings of the golden hair,
Life’s tide at full in that brief interlude! 
Then as a bark slips from her natural coast
Deep into seas unknown,
Scotland went forth alone,
Unfriended, unallied; a handful ’gainst a host.

10

By the Bolder moorlands bare,
By faithless Solway’s glistening sands,
And where Caer Luel’s dungeon stands,
Huge keep of ancient Urien, huge, foursquare:—­
Preston, and loyal Lancashire; . . . and then
From central Derby down,
To strike the royal town,
And to his German realm the usurper thrust again!

11

—­O the lithesome mountaineers,
Wild hearts with kingly boyhood high,
And victory in each forward eye,
While stainless honour his white banner rears! 
Then all the air with mountain-music thrill’d,
The bonnets o’er the brow,—­
My gallant clans! . . . and now
The voices closed in earth, in death the pibroch still’d!

12

—­As beneath Ben Aille’s crest
The west wind weaves its roof of gray,
And all the glory of the day
Blooms off from loch and copse and green hill-breast;
So, when that craven council spoke retreat,
The fateful shameful word
They heard,—­and scarcely heard! 
At Scotland’s name how should the blood refuse to beat?