For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,

And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.

LOCHIEL.

False wizard, avaunt! I have marshall'd

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 in the rock!
But woe to their kindred, and woe to their cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws!
When her bonnetted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
All plaided and plum'd in their tartan array.—

WIZARD.

Lochiël! Lochiël! beware of the day!—

For dark and despairing, my sight. I may seal;
But man cannot cover what God would reveal:
'Tis 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 blood-hounds that bark for thy fugitive king:

Anointed by heav'n with the vials of wrath,

Behold! where he flies on his desolate path.

Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight:

Arise ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!"

Tis finish'd!-their thunders are hush'd on the moors;

But where is the iron-bound prisoner, where,

When the red eye of battle is shut in despair?

Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banish'd 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!-let mercy dispel

Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!

Life flutters convuls'd in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims!

Accurs'd be the faggots, 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.

LOCHIEL.

Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale ;

Lochiël, untainted by flight or by chains,

Alluding to the victims of military execution, after the battle.

While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,

Shall victor exult in the battle's acclaim,

Or look to yon heav'n from the death-bed of fame.

NOTE.

LOCHIEL, the chief of the warlike clan of the Camerons, and descended from ancestors distinguished in their narrow sphere for great personal prowess, was a man worthy of a better cause and fate than that in which he embarked, viz. the enterprise of the Stuarts in 1745. His memory is still fondly cherished among the Highlanders, by the appellation of the gentle Lochiel, for he was famed for his social virtues as much as his martial and loyal (though mistaken) magna

nimity. His influence was so important among the Highland chiefs, that it depended on his joining with his clan whether the standard of Charles should be raised or not in 1745. Lochiel was himself too wise a man to be blind to the consequences of so hopeless an enterprise, but his sensibility to the point of honour overruled his wisdom. Charles appealed to his loyalty, and he could not brook the reproaches of his Prince. When Charles landed at Borrodale, Lochiel went to meet him, but, on his way, called at his brother's house, (Cameron of Fassafern) and told him on what errand he was going; adding, however, that he meant to dissuade the Prince from his enterprise. Fassafern advised him in that case to communicate his mind by letter to Charles. "No," said Lochiel," I think it due to my Prince

to give him my reasons in person for refusing to join his I know you

standard."

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Brother,” replied Fassafern,“