XXI.
With all her joyful female band,
Had Lady Margaret sought the strand.
Loose on the breeze their tresses flew,
And high their snowy arms they threw,
As echoing back with shrill acclaim,
And chorus wild, the Chieftain’s name;
While prompt to please, with mother’s art,
The darling passion of his heart,
The Dame call’d Ellen to the strand,
To greet her kinsman ere he land:
“Come, loiterer, come! a Douglas thou,
And shun to wreathe a victor’s brow?”
Reluctantly and slow, the maid
The unwelcome summoning obey’d,
And, when a distant bugle rung,
In the mid-path aside she sprung:—
“List, Allan-Bane! From mainland cast,
I hear my father’s signal blast.
Be ours," she cried, "the skiff to guide,
And waft him from the mountain side.”
Then, like a sunbeam, swift and bright,
She darted to her shallop light,
And, eagerly while Roderick scann’d,
For her dear form, his mother’s band,
The islet far behind her lay,
And she had landed in the bay.