The next is the greatest of his poems or hymns—_The Day of Judgment_. The poet begins in his usual Scriptural simple style, but as he proceeds the treatment and the language become elevated and majestic. We seem to see the _dramatis personæ_ acting their gorgeous parts on the canvass of the poet’s grand conceptions. The verses beginning with “’N sin fàsaidh rudhadh anns an speur,” are regarded as very sublime. But there is no translation of this poem that will convey anything like a fair impression of the original. The following verses may give some idea of the manner of the poem:— Then, like the morn enkindling red, A glowing spreads throughout the skies; Where Jesus comes a glare is shed By heaven’s burning tapestries. The clouds all suddenly unfold To make for the High King a door; And we the Mighty Judge behold, Whose glory streams forth evermore. The rainbow glows around his form, His voice resounds like mountain-floods; Outflashing o’er the sullen storm, His lightning eye pours from the clouds. The sun, great lustre of the skies, Before His glorious Person pales; At length her failing brightness dies Before the light His face unveils. Her robes of gloom she will uptake, The blood-red moon drops down in space; The mighty heavenly powers shall shake, Outcasting planets from their place. Like tempest-shaken fruit on trees, So shall they tremble in the skies; Like heavy rain-drops on the breeze, Their glory like a dead man’s eyes. The poetical conceptions of Buchanan on this subject have woven themselves into the theological ideas of the Highlander, like those of Milton into the religious thought of England. _The Skull_ is well-rendered by Professor Blackie, whose version begins thus:— I sat all alone By a cold grey stone, And behold a skull lay on the ground! I took in my hand, And pitiful scanned Its ruin, all round and round. Without colour or ken, Or notice of men, When a footstep may trample the ground; A jaw without tooth, And no tongue in the mouth, And a throat with no function of sound. In thy cheek is no red, Smooth and cold is thy head, Deaf thine ear when sweet music is nigh; In thy nostrils no breath, And the savour of death In dark hollow where beamed the bright eye. No virtue now flashes ’Neath eyelids and lashes, No message of brightness is sped; But worms to and fro Do busily go Where pictures of beauty were spread. And the brain that was there Into ashes or air Is vanished, and now hath no mind To finish the plan It so boldly began And left—a proud folly—behind.