“I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief, I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief: On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem; Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!” In dust, low the traitor has knelt to the ground, And the desert revealed where his lady was found; From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne— Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn! [74] Maclean of Duart. LINES ON RECEIVING A SEAL WITH THE CAMPBELL CREST, FROM K. M——, BEFORE HER MARRIAGE. This wax returns not back more fair The impression of the gift you send, Than stamped upon my thoughts I bear The image of your worth, my friend! We are not friends of yesterday;— But poet’s fancies are a little Disposed to heat and cool (they say),— By turns impressible and brittle. Well! should its frailty e’er condemn My heart to prize or please you less, _Your_ type is still the sealing gem, And _mine_ the waxen brittleness. What transcripts of my weal and woe This little signet yet may lock,— What utterances to friend or foe, In reason’s calm or passion’s shock! What scenes of life’s yet curtained page May own its confidential die, Whose stamp awaits the unwritten page, And feelings of futurity! Yet wheresoe’er my pen I lift To date the epistolary sheet, The blest occasion of the gift Shall make its recollection sweet; Sent when the star that rules your fates Hath reached its influence most benign— When every heart congratulates, And none more cordially than mine. So speed my song—marked with the crest That erst the adventurous Norman[75] wore, Who won the Lady of the West, The daughter of Macaillain Mor. Crest of my sires! whose blood it sealed With glory in the strife of swords, Ne’er may the scroll that bears it yield Degenerate thoughts or faithless words! Yet little might I prize the stone, If it but typed the feudal tree From whence a scattered leaf, I’m blown In Fortune’s mutability. No!—but it tells me of a heart, Allied by friendship’s living tie; A prize beyond the herald’s art— Our soul-sprung consanguinity! Katherine! to many an hour of mine Light wings and sunshine you have lent; And so adieu, and still be thine The all-in-all of life—Content! [75] A Norman leader, Gilliespie le Camile, in the service of the king of Scotland, married the heiress of Lochaw in the twelfth century, and from him the Campbells are sprung. GILDEROY. The last, the fatal hour is come, That bears my love from me; I hear the dead note of the drum, I mark the gallows’ tree! The bell has tolled; it shakes my heart; The trumpet speaks thy name; And must my Gilderoy depart To bear a death of shame? No bosom trembles for thy doom; No mourner wipes a tear; The gallows’ foot is all thy tomb, The sledge is all thy bier.