Night the Second

Scarce fled the dawning's dubious gray,
So transient was that dismal day :
The lurid vapours, dense and stern,
Unpierced save by the crusted cairn,
In tenfold shroud the heavens deform ;
While far within the brooding storm
Travelled the sun in lonely blue,
And noontide wore a twilight hue,
The sprites that through the welkin wing,
That light and shade alternate bring,
That wrap the eve in dusky veil,
And weave the morning's purple rail ;
From pendent clouds of deepest grain,
Shed that dull twilight o'er the main.
Each spire, each tower, and cliff sublime,
Were hooded in the wreathy rime ;
And all, ere fell the murk of even,
Were lost within the folds of heaven.

It seemed as if the welkin's breast
Had bowed upon the world to rest ;
As heaven and earth to close began,
And seal the destiny of man.

The supper bell at Court had rung ;
The mass was said, the vesper sung ;
In true devotion's sweetest mood,
Beauty had kneeled before the rood ;
But all was done in secret guise,
Close from the zealot's searching eyes.

Then burst the bugle's lordly peal
Along the earth's incumbent veil ;
Swam on the cloud and lingering shower,
To festive hall and lady's bower ;
And found its way, with rapid boom,
To rocks far curtained in the gloom,
And waked their viewless bugle's strain,
That sung the softened notes again.

Upsprung the maid from her love-dream ;
The matron from her silken seam ;
The abbot from his holy shrine ;
The chiefs and warriors from their wine:
For aye the bugle seemed to say,
" The Wake's begun i away, away !"

Fast poured they in, all fair and boon,
Till crowded was the grand saloon ;
And scarce was left a little ring,
In which the rival bards might sing.

First in the list that night to play,
Was Farquhar, from the hills of Spey:
A gay and comely youth was he,
And seemed of noble pedigree.
Well known to him Loch-Avin's shore,
And all the dens of dark Glen- More ;
Where oft, amid his roving clan,
His shaft had pierced the ptarmigan ;
And oft the dun deer's velvet side
That winged shaft had ruthless dyed,
Had struck the heath-cock whirring high,
And brought the eagle from the sky ;
And he had dragged the scaly brood
From every Highland lake and flood.

Amid those scenes the youth was bred,
Where nature's eye is stern and dread ;
'Mid forests dark, and caverns wild,
And mountains above mountains piled,
Whose hoary summits, tempest-riven,
Uprear eternal snows to heaven.
In Cumbria's dells he too had staid,
Raving like one in trance that's laid,
Of things which Nature gave not birth ;
Of heavenly damsels born of earth ;
Of pestilence and charnel den ;
Of ships, and seas, and souls of men :
A moon-struck youth, by all confest,
The dreamer of the watery West.
His locks were fair as sunny sky ;
His cheek was ruddy, bright his eye ;
His speech was like the music's voice
Mixed with the cataract's swaying noise ;
His harp strings sounded wild and deep,
With lulling swell and lordly sweep.

Aloof from battle's fierce alarms,
Prone his young mind to music's charms :
The cliffs and woods of dark Glen- More
He taught to chant in mystic lore ;
For well he weened, by tarn and hill,
Kind viewless spirits wandered still;
And fondly trowed the groups to spy,
Listening his cliff-born melody.
On Leven's bard with scorn he looked,
His homely song he scarcely brooked ;
But proudly mounting on the form,
Thus sung The Spirit of the Storm.