The wolf’s long howl in dismal concert joined, &c.
Perhaps in some lone, dreary, desert tower
That Time had spared, forth from the window looks,
Half hid in grass, the solitary fox;
While from above, the owl, musician dire,
Screams hideous, harsh, and grating to the ear.
Bruce: Loch Leven.
In the Fragments attributed to Ossian by Baron de Harold, Fingal paints the following beautiful word-picture:—
I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they are desolate: the flames had resounded in the halls, and the voice of the people is heard no more; the stream of Cutha was removed from its place by the fall of the walls; the thistle shoots there its lowly head; the moss whistled to the winds; the fox looked out of the windows, and the rank grass of the walls waved round his head; desolate is the dwelling of Morna: silence is in the house of her fathers.