Waverley — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 733 pages of information about Waverley — Complete.

Waverley — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 733 pages of information about Waverley — Complete.

    The deeds of our sires if our bards should rehearse,
    Let a blush or a blow be the meed of their verse! 
    Be mute every string, and be hush’d every tone,
    That shall bid us remember the fame that is flown.

    But the dark hours of night and of slumber are past,
    The morn on our mountains is dawning at last;
    Glenaladale’s peaks are illumined with the rays,
    And the streams of Glenfinnan leap bright in the blaze.

[Footnote:  The young and daring adventurer, Charles Edward, landed at Glenaladale, in Moidart, and displayed his standard in the valley of Glenfinnan, mustering around it the Mac-Donalds, the Camerons, and other less numerous clans, whom he had prevailed on to join him.  There is a monument erected on the spot, with a Latin inscription by the late Doctor Gregory.]

    O high-minded Moray! the exiled! the dear! 
    In the blush of the dawning the standard uprear! 
    Wide, wide on the winds of the north let it fly,
    Like the sun’s latest flash when the tempest is nigh!

[Footnote:  The Marquis of Tullibardine’s elder brother, who, long exiled, returned to Scotland with Charles Edward in 1745.]

    Ye sons of the strong, when that dawning shall break,
    Need the harp of the aged remind you to wake? 
    That dawn never beam’d on your forefathers’ eye,
    But it roused each high chieftain to vanquish or die.

    O, sprung from the Kings who in Islay kept state,
    Proud chiefs of Clan Ranald, Glengarry, and Sleat! 
    Combine like three streams from one mountain of snow,
    And resistless in union rush down on the foe!

    True son of Sir Evan, undaunted Lochiel,
    Place thy targe on thy shoulder and burnish thy steel! 
    Rough Keppoch, give breath to thy bugle’s bold swell,
    Till far Coryarrick resound to the knell!

    Stern son of Lord Kenneth, high chief of Kintail,
    Let the stag in thy standard bound wild in the gale! 
    May the race of Clan Gillean, the fearless and free,
    Remember Glenlivat, Harlaw, and Dundee!

    Let the clan of grey Fingon, whose offspring has given
    Such heroes to earth and such martyrs to heaven,
    Unite with the race of renown’d Rorri More,
    To launch the long galley and stretch to the oar.

    How Mac-Shimei will joy when their chief shall display
    The yew-crested bonnet o’er tresses of grey! 
    How the race of wrong’d Alpine and murder’d Glencoe
    Shall shout for revenge when they pour on the foe!

    Ye sons of brown Dermid, who slew the wild boar,
    Resume the pure faith of the great Callum-More! 
    Mac-Neil of the islands, and Moy of the Lake,
    For honour, for freedom, for vengeance awake!

Here a large greyhound, bounding up the glen, jumped upon Flora and interrupted her music by his importunate caresses.  At a distant whistle he turned and shot down the path again with the rapidity of an arrow.  ’That is Fergus’s faithful attendant, Captain Waverley, and that was his signal.  He likes no poetry but what is humorous, and comes in good time to interrupt my long catalogue of the tribes, whom one of your saucy English poets calls

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Waverley — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.