Was not that the Highland slogan? Let me hear that shout again! Oh, for prophet eyes to witness how the desperate battle goes! Cumberland! I would not fear thee, could my Camerons see their foe. Sound, I say, the charge at venture--t'is not naked steel we fear; Better perish in the mêlée than be shot like driven deer! Hold! the mist begins to scatter. There in front 'tis rent asunder, And the cloudy battery crumbles underneath the deafening thunder; There I see the scarlet gleaming! Now, Macdonald--now or never!-- Woe is me, the clans are broken! Father, thou art lost for ever! Chief and vassal, lord and yeoman, there they lie in heaps together, Smitten by the deadly volley, rolled in blood upon the heather; And the Hanoverian horsemen, fiercely riding to and fro, Deal their murderous strokes at random.-- Ah my God! where am I now? Will that baleful vision never vanish from my aching sight? Must those scenes and sounds of terror haunt me still by day and night? Yea, the earth hath no oblivion for the noblest chance it gave, None, save in its latest refuge--seek it only in the grave. Love may die, and hatred slumber, and their memory will decay, As the water'd garden recks not of the drought of yesterday; But the dream of power once broken, what shall give repose again? What shall charm the serpent-furies coil'd around the maddening brain? What kind draught can nature offer strong enough to lull their sting? Better to be born a peasant than to live an exiled king! Oh, these years of bitter anguish!--What is life to such as me, With my very heart as palsied as a wasted cripple's knee! Suppliant-like for alms depending on a false and foreign court, Jostled by the flouting nobles, half their pity, half their sport. Forced to hold a place in pageant, like a royal prize of war Walking with dejected features close behind his victor's car, Styled an equal--deem'd a servant--fed with hopes of future gain-- Worse by far is fancied freedom than the captive's clanking chain! Could I change this gilded bondage even for the massy tower Whence King James beheld his lady sitting in the castle bower-- Birds around her sweetly singing, fluttering on the kindled spray, And the comely garden glowing in the light of rosy May. Love descended to the window--Love removed the bolt and bar-- Love was warder to the lovers from the dawn to even-star. Wherefore, Love, didst thou betray me? Where is now the tender glance? Where the meaning looks once lavish'd by the dark-eyed Maid of France? Where the words of hope she whisper'd, when around my neck she threw That same scarf of broider'd tissue, bade me wear it and be true-- Bade me send it as a token when my banner waved once more On the castled Keep of London, where my fathers' waved before?