Dirge of the Highland Chief in “Waverley.” [59]
Son of the mighty and the free!
High-minded leader of the brave!
Was it for lofty chief like thee
To fill a nameless grave?
Oh! if amidst the valiant slain
The warrior’s bier had been thy lot,
E’en though on red Culloden’s plain,
We then had mourn’d thee not.
But darkly closed thy dawn of fame,
That dawn whose sunbeam rose so fair;
Vengeance alone may breathe thy name,
The watchword of Despair!
Yet, oh! if gallant spirit’s power
Hath e’er ennobled death like thine,
Then glory mark’d thy parting hour,
Last of a mighty line!
O’er thy own towers the sunshine falls,
But cannot chase their silent gloom;
Those beams that gild thy native walls
Are sleeping on thy tomb!
Spring on thy mountains laughs the while,
Thy green woods wave in vernal air,
But the loved scenes may vainly smile:
Not e’en thy dust is there.
On thy blue hills no bugle-sound
Is mingling with the torrent’s roar;
Unmark’d, the wild deer sport around:
Thou lead’st the chase no more!
Thy gates are closed, thy halls are still,
Those halls where peal’d the choral strain;
They hear the wind’s deep murmuring thrill,
And all is hush’d again.
No banner from the lonely tower
Shall wave its blazon’d folds on high;
There the tall grass and summer flower
Unmark’d shall spring and die.
No more thy bard for other ear
Shall wake the harp once loved by thine—
Hush’d be the strain thou canst not hear,
Last of a mighty line!
[59] These very beautiful stanzas first appeared in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1815, (p. 255,) with the following interesting heading.
“A literary friend of ours received these verses with a letter of the following tenor:—
“‘A very ingenious young friend of mine has just sent me the enclosed, on reading Waverley. To you the world gives that charming work; and if in any future edition you should like to insert the Dirge to a Highland Chief, you would do honour to
Your Sincere Admirer.’
“The individual to whom this obliging letter was addressed, having no claim to the honour which is there done him, does not possess the means of publishing the verses in the popular novel alluded to. But that the public may sustain no loss, and that the ingenious author of Waverley may be aware of the honour intended him, our correspondent has ventured to send the verses to our Register.”
Notwithstanding the mysticism in the note about the “very ingenious young friend of mine” and “your sincere admirer,” on the one hand; and the disclaimer by “a literary friend of ours,” on the other, there can be little doubt that the Dirge was sent by Mrs Hermans to Sir Walter, then Mr Scott, and by him to the Register—of which he himself wrote that year the historical department.—Vide Lockhart’s Life of Scott, vol. iv. p. 80.