The American Union Speaker

by John D. Philbrick

THE WIDOW OF GLENCOE.

Do not lift him from the bracken, leave him lying where he fell—
Better bier ye cannot fashion: none beseems him half so well
As the bare and broken heather, and the hard and broken sod,
Whence his angry soul ascended to the judgment-seat of God!
Winding-sheet we cannot give him—seek no mantle for the dead,
Save the cold and spotless covering showered from heaven upon his
head.
Leave his broadsword as we found it, rent and broken with the blow,
That, before he died, avenged him on the foremost of the foe.
Leave the blood upon the bosom—wash not off that sacred stain;
Let it stiffen on the tartan, let his wounds unclosed remain,
Till the day when he shall show them at the throne of God on high,
When the murderer and the murdered meet before their Judge's eye.
Nay—ye should not weep, my children! leave it to the faint and weak;
Sobs are but a woman's weapons—tears befit a maiden's cheek.
Weep not, children of Macdonald! weep not thou, his orphan heir;
Not in shame, but stainless honor, lies thy slaughtered father there;
Weep not—but when years are over, and thine arm is strong and sure,
And thy foot is swift and steady on the mountain and the muir,
Let thy heart be hard as iron, and thy wrath as fierce as fire,
Till the hour when vengeance cometh for the race that slew thy sire!
Till in deep and dark Glenlyon rise a louder shriek of woe,
Than at midnight, from their eyry, scared the eagles of Glencoe;
Louder than the screams that mingled with the howling of the blast,
When the murderers' steel was clashing, and the fires were rising
fast;
When thy noble father bounded to the rescue of his men,
And the slogan of our kindred pealed throughout the startled glen;
When the herd of frantic women stumbled through the midnight snow,
With their fathers' houses blazing, and their dearest dead below!
Oh, the horror of the tempest, as the flashing drift was blown,
Crimsoned with the conflagration, and the roofs went thundering down!
Oh, the prayers, the prayers and curses, that together winged their
flight
From the maddened hearts of many, through that long and woful night!—
Till the fires began to dwindle, and the shots grew faint and few,
And we heard the foeman's challenge only in a far halloo:
Till the silence once more settled o'er the gorges of the glen,
Broken only by the Cona plunging through its naked den.
Slowly from the mountain summit was the drifting veil withdrawn,
And the ghastly valley glimmered in the gray December dawn.
Better had the morning never dawned upon our dark despair!
Black amidst the common whiteness rose the spectral ruins there:
But the sight of these was nothing more than wrings the wild dove's
breast,
When she searches for her offspring round the relics of her nest.
For in many a spot the tartan peered above the wintry heap,
Marking where a dead Macdonald lay within his frozen sleep.
Tremblingly we scooped the covering from each kindred victim's head,
And the living lips were burning on the cold ones of the dead.
And I left them with their dearest—dearest charge had every one—
Left the maiden with her lover, left the mother with her son.
I alone of all was mateless—far more wretched I than they,
For the snow would not discover where my lord and husband lay.
But I wandered up the valley, till I found him lying low,
With the gash upon his bosom, and the frown upon his brow—
Till I found him lying murdered where he wooed me long ago.

Woman's weakness shall not shame me—why should I have tears to shed?
Could I rain them down like water, O my hero! on thy head—
Could the cry of lamentation wake thee from thy silent sleep,
Could it set thy heart a-throbbing, it were mine to wail and weep!
But I will not waste my sorrow, lest the Campbell women say
That the daughters of Clanranald are as weak and frail as they.
I had wept thee, hadst thou fallen, like our fathers, on thy shield,
When a host of English foemen camped upon a Scottish field.
I had mourned thee, hadst thou perished with the foremost of his name,
When the valiant and the noble died around the dauntless Græme!
But I will not wrong thee, husband, with my unavailing cries,
Whilst thy cold and mangled body, stricken by the traitor, lies;
Whilst he counts the gold and glory that this hideous night has won,
And his heart is big with triumph at the murder he has done.
Other eyes than mine shall glisten, other hearts be rent in twain,
Ere the heath-bells on thy hillock wither in the autumn rain.
Then I'll seek thee where thou sleepest, and I'll veil my weary head,
Praying for a place beside thee, dearer than my bridal-bed:
And I'll give thee tears, my husband, if the tears remain to me,
When the widows of the foeman cry the coronach for thee!
W. E. Aytoun.

CCXXVI.

BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly, at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow,
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!
Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,

And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,—
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done