Interlude before Kilmeny

When ceased the lay, the plaudits rung,
Not for the bard, or song he sung ;
But every eye with pleasure shone,
And cast its smiles on one alone—
That one was princely Hamilton !
And well the gallant chief approved
The bard who sung of sire beloved,
And pleased were all the court to see
The minstrel hailed so courteously.

Again is every courtier's gaze
Speaking suspense, and deep amaze ;
The bard was stately, dark and stern. —
'Twas Drummond from the moors of Ern.
Tall was his frame, his forehead high,
Still and mysterious was his eye ;
His look was like a winter day,
When storms and winds have sunk away.

Well versed was he in holy lore ;
In cloistered dome the cowl he wore ;
But, wearied with the eternal strain
Of formal breviats, cold and vain,
He wooed, in depth of Highland dale,
The silver spring and mountain gale.

In gray Glen-Ample's forest deep,
Hid from the rains and tempests' sweep,
In bosom of an aged wood
His solitary cottage stood.
Its walls were bastioned, dark, and dern,
Dark was its roof of filmot fern,
And dark the vista down the linn,
But all was love and peace within.
Religion, man's first friend and best,
Was in that home a constant guest ;
There, sweetly, every morn and even,
Warm orisons were poured to Heaven :
And every cliff Glen- Ample knew,
And green-wood on her banks that grew,
In answer to his bounding string,
Had learned the hymns of Heaven to sing ;
With many a song of mystic lore,
Rude as when sung in days of yore.

His were the snowy flocks that strayed
Adown Glen-Airtney's forest glade ;
And his the goat, and chestnut hind,
Where proud Ben-Vorlich cleaves the wind :
There oft, when suns of summer shone,
The bard would sit, and muse alone,
Of innocence, expelled by man ;
Of nature's fair and wondrous plan ;
Of the eternal throne sublime,
Of visions seen in ancient time,
Till his rapt soul would leave her home
In visionary worlds to roam.
Then would the mists that wandered bye
Seem hovering spirits to his eye ;
Then would the breezes whistling sweep,
Soft lulling in the cavern deep,
Seem to the enthusiast's dreaming ear
The words of spirits whispered near.

Loathed his firm soul the measured chime
And florid films of modern rhyme ;
No other lays became his tongue
But those his rude forefathers sung.
And when, by wandering minstrel warned,
The mandate of his queen he learned,
So much he prized the ancient strain,
High hopes had he the prize to gain.

With modest, yet majestic mien,
He tuned his harp of solemn strain :
O list the tale, ye fair and young,
A lay so strange was never sung !