Heard ye not! Heard ye not! How that
whirlwind, the Gael-
To Lochaber swept down from Loch Ness to Lochiel Eil-
And the Campbells, to meet them in battle-array,
Like the billow came on,-and were broke like its spray!
Long, long shall our war-song exult in that day.
'Twas the Sabbath that rose,
'twas the Feast of St. Bride,
When the rush of the clans shook Ben Nevis's side;
I, the bard of their battles, ascended the height
O'er dark Inverlochy that shadow'd the fight,
And I saw the Clan Donald resistless in might.
Through the land of my fathers
the Campbells have come,
The flames of their foray enveloped my home;
Broad Keppoch in ruin is left to deplore,
And my country is waste from the hill to the shore-
Be it so! By St. Mary, there's comfort in store!
Through the braes of Lochaber a
desert be made,
And Glen Roy may be lost to the plough and the spade,
Though the bones of my kindrid, unhonour'd unurn'd-
Mark the desolate path where the Campbells have burn'd-
Be it so! From that foray they never return'd!
Fallen race of Diarmid! Disloyal,
-untrue,
No harp in the Highlands will sorrow for you:
But the birds of Loch Eil are wheeling on high,
And the Badenoch wolves hear the Camerons' cry-
"Come feast ye! Come feast, where the false-hearted lie!" |
