XIX.
“Now westward rolls the battle’s din,
That deep and doubling pass within.
—Minstrel, away! the work of fate
Is bearing on: its issue wait,
Where the rude Trosachs’ dread defile
Opens on Katrine’s lake and isle.
Gray Benvenue I soon repass’d,
Loch Katrine lay beneath me cast.
The sun is set;—the clouds are met,
The lowering scowl of heaven
An inky hue of livid blue
To the deep lake has given;
Strange gusts of wind from mountain glen
Swept o’er the lake, then sunk agen.
I heeded not the eddying surge,
Mine eye but saw the Trosachs’ gorge,
Mine ear but heard that sullen sound,
Which like an earthquake shook the ground,
And spoke the stern and desperate strife
That parts not but with parting life,
Seeming, to minstrel ear, to toll
The dirge of many a passing soul.
Nearer it comes—the dim-wood glen
The martial flood disgorged agen,
But not in mingled tide;
The plaided warriors of the North
High on the mountain thunder forth
And overhang its side;
While by the lake below appears
The dark’ning cloud of Saxon spears.
At weary bay each shatter’d band,
Eying their foemen, sternly stand;
Their banners stream like tatter’d sail,
That flings its fragments to the gale,
And broken arms and disarray
Mark’d the fell havoc of the day.”