gaged in this unhappy cause. "His memory is still cherished among the Highlanders, by the appellation of the gentle Lochiel, for he was famed for his social virtues as much as for his martial and magnanimous (though mistaken) loyalty." Before Lochiel had led his followers to the standard of the Pretender, it is related that a Seer forewarned him of the catastrophe which awaited the rebels. This remonstrance is the foundation of Lochiel's Warning. The less informed of the Scots, from time immemorial, have cherished a belief in the gift of second sight or gift of prophecy. The second sight,- say those who believe in it, is an actual perception which the gifted person has of things absent and future, which he can afterwards describe to others, and which usually intimates some important event. Ellen, in the Lady of the Lake, tells the stranger Knight, "Old Allan-bane foretold your plight,— A gray-haired sire, whose eye intent, LOCHIEL'S WARNING. Wizard. Lochiel! Lochiel, beware of the day seer! Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright. Wizard. 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? But down let him stoop from his havoc on high! Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return! For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, Lochiel. False Wizard avaunt! I have marshalled my clan : Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one! They are true to the last of their blood and their breath, Wizard.—Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day! Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight: 'Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where ? For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn? The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier! 297 Lochiel-Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale : Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, With his back to the field and his feet to the foe! And leaving in battle no blot on his name, Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame. Weep Albin—Scotland, or literally, people of Scotland. Proud bird of the mountain. The Wizard here addresses Lochiel figuratively, and speaks of the ruin which is impending over his house, as a fire shower destined to consume the eyrie or eagle's nest—that signifies the chief's home and his family. A darker departure is near. The agonizing description given in the lines which follow to the end of the passage refer to a fact. "The brother of Lochiel returned to England ten years after the rebellion, though he acted only as a surgeon in the rebel army, suffered the dreadful fate here predicted, by a sentence which happily has no parallel for needless severity in the modern history of state trials in this humane age." THE LAST MAN, All worldly- shapes shall melt in gloom, The Sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume Its Immortality! I saw a vision in my sleep, That gave my spirit strength to sweep I saw the last of human mould. The Sun's eye had a sickly glare, Some had expired in fight,—the brands Earth's cities had no sound nor tread; Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood, Saying, We are twins in death, proud Sun; What though beneath thee man put forth And triumphs that beneath thee sprang, Go,—let oblivion's curtain fall Nor with thy rising beams recall Its piteous pageants bring not back, E'en I am weary in yon skies My lips that speak thy dirge of death,-- The Eclipse of Nature spreads my pall,— This spirit shall return to Him That gave its heavenly spark; Who robbed the grave of victory,- Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up To drink this last and bitter cup Of grief that man shall taste; The darkening universe defy Or shake his trust in God! |