"First, three times tell each Ave-bead,
"And thrice a Pater-noster say;
"Then kiss with me the holy reed;
"So shall we safely wind our way."
"O shame to knighthood, strange and foul!
"Go, doff the bonnet from thy brow,
"And shroud thee in the monkish cowl,
"Which best befits thy sullen vow.
"Not so, by high Dunlathmon's fire,
"Thy heart was froze to love and joy,
"When gaily rung thy raptured lyre,
"To wanton Morna's melting eye."
Wild stared the Minstrel's eyes of flame,
And high his sable locks arose,
And quick his colour went and came,
As fear and rage alternate rose.
"And thou! when by the blazing oak
"I lay, to her and love resign'd,
"Say, rode ye on the eddying smoke,
"Or sailed ye on the midnight wind!
"Not thine a race of mortal blood,
"Nor old Glengyle's pretended line;
"Thy dame, the Lady of the Flood,
"Thy sire, the Monarch of the Mine."
He mutter'd thrice St Oran's rhyme,
And thrice St Fillan's powerful prayer;
Then turn'd him to the eastern clime,
And sternly shook his coal-black hair.
And, bending o'er his harp, he flung
His wildest witch-notes on the wind;
And loud, and high, and strange, they rung,
As many a magic change they find.
Tall wax'd the Spirit's altering form,
Till to the roof her stature grew;
Then, mingling with the rising storm,
With one wild yell, away she flew.
Rain beats, hail rattles, whirlwinds tear:
The slender hut in fragments flew;
But not a lock of Moy's loose hair
Was waved by wind, or wet by dew.