A time will come with feeling fraught, For if I fall in battle fought, Thy hapless lover's dying thought Shall be a thought on thee, Mary. And if returned from conquered foes, 565 How blithely will the evening close, How sweet the linnet sing repose, To my young bride and me, Mary! XXIV Not faster o'er thy heathery braes, Balquidder, speeds the midnight blaze, 570 Rushing, in conflagration strong, Thy deep ravines and dells along, Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow, And reddening the dark lakes below; Nor faster speeds it, nor so far, 575 As o'er thy heaths the voice of war. The signal roused to martial coil, The sullen margin of Loch Voil, Waked still Loch Doine, and to the source Alarmed, Balvaig, thy swampy course; 580 Thence southward turned its rapid road Adown Strath-Gartney's valley broad, Till rose in arms each man might claim A portion in Clan-Alpine's name, From the gray sire, whose trembling hand 585 Could hardly buckle on his brand, To the raw boy, whose shaft and bow Were yet scarce terror to the crow. Each valley, each sequestered glen, Mustered its little horde of men, 590 That met as torrents from the height In Highland dales their streams unite, Still gathering, as they pour along, A voice more loud, a tide more strong, Till at the rendezvous they stood 595 By hundreds prompt for blows and blood, Each trained to arms since life began, Owning no tie but to his clan, No oath, but by his chieftain's hand, No law, but Roderick Dhu's command. 600 XXV That summer morn had Roderick Dhu Surveyed the skirts of Benvenue, And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath, To view the frontiers of Menteith. All backward came with news of truce; 605 Still lay each martial Graeme and Bruce; In Rednoch courts no horsemen wait, No banner waved on Cardross gate, On Duchray's towers no beacon shone, Nor scared the herons from Loch Con; 610 All seemed at peace. Now wot ye why The Chieftain, with such anxious eye, Ere to the muster he repair, This western frontier scanned with care? In Benvenue's most darksome cleft, 615 A fair, though cruel, pledge was left; For Douglas, to his promise true, That morning from the isle withdrew, And in a deep sequestered dell Had sought a low and lonely cell. 620 By many a bard, in Celtic tongue, Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sung; A softer name the Saxons gave, And called the grot the Goblin-cave. XXVI