No more to chiefs and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells; The chord alone, that breaks at night, Its tale of ruin tells. Thus freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives, Is when some heart indignant breaks To show that still she lives. This one, too, sounds a similar note. It is entitled “After the Battle”:— Night closed around the conqueror’s way, And lightnings show’d the distant hill, Where those who lost that dreadful day Stood few and faint, but fearless still! The soldier’s hope, the patriot’s zeal, For ever dimm’d, for ever crost— Oh! who shall say what heroes feel When all but life and honour’s lost? The last sad hour of freedom’s dream And valour’s task mov’d slowly by, While mute they watch’d, till morning’s beam Should rise and give them light to die. There’s yet a world where souls are free, Where tyrants taint not nature’s bliss; If death that world’s bright opening be, Oh! who would live a slave in this? From Moore it is but a step to the great master-hand of Celtic romance, the heroic Sir Walter Scott, who has done more than any modern writer to popularise the literature of the Gael, and to make the Gael and his country interesting to Englishmen. With his magic power he threw a halo over the land and the people, and made their past live again in his enchanting pages. What a world of forgotten romance he brought to light alike in his prose and his poetry! In the _Lady of the Lake_, _Tales of a Grandfather_, _Waverley_, and _Rob Roy_, we have Celtic life and tradition depicted in a way which has vastly influenced and enriched our English literature, besides showing the gate to subsequent authors into a field near at hand, into which English imagination, much less English sympathy and literary art, had hardly as yet found its way. What Wordsworth in England did for the Lake District, Scott in Scotland did for the Highlands, fostering the love for scenery which the English poets had already begun to awaken. Yet, more than any of his predecessors who cultivated the poetry of natural description, Scott carried into English literature the Celtic imagination and sentiment, the Celtic magic and wistful veneration for the past, which made him the wizard of modern literary romance.