Yet fain my harp would wake its boldest tone, Mindful of meeting brief that Fortune gave 'Mid yon far western isles that hear the Atlantic rave. 13 Yes! hard the task, when Britons wield the sword, To give each Chief and every field its fame : Hark! Albuera thunders BERESFORD, And red Barossa shouts for dauntless GRÆME! Bold as the bursting of their cannon sound, With conquest's well-bought wreath were braver victors crown'd! 14 O who shall grudge him Albuera's bays, Who brought a race regenerate to the field, steel'd,F And raised fair Lusitania's fallen shield, And gave new edge to Lusitania's sword, And taught her sons forgotten arms to wieldShivered my harp, and burst its every chord, If it forget thy worth, victorious BERESFORD! 15 Not on that bloody field of battle won, . Though Gaul's proud legions rolled like mist away, Was half his self-devoted valour shown,- But when he toiled those squadrons to array, He braved the shafts of censure and of shame, And, dearer far than life, he pledged a soldier's fame. 16 Nor be his praise o'erpass'd who strove to hide Beneath the warrior's vest affection's wound, Whose wish Heaven for his country's weal denied; Danger and fate he sought, but glory found. From clime to clime, where'er war's trumpets sound The wanderer went; yet, Caledonia! still Thine was his thought in march and tented ground, He dreamed 'mid Alpine cliffs of Athole's hill, And heard in Ebro's roar his Lyndoch's lovely rill. 17 O hero of a race renowned of old, Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle-swell, Since first distinguished in the onset bold, Wild sounding when the Roman rampart fell! By Wallace' side it rung the Southron's knell, Alderne, Kilsythe, and Tibber, owned its fame, Tummel's rude pass can of its terrors tell, But ne'er from prouder field arose the name, Than when wild Ronda learned the conquering shout of GRÆME! 18 But all too long, through seas unknown and dark, (With Spenser's parable I close my tale), By shoal and rock hath steered my venturous bark; And landward now I drive before the gale, And now the blue and distant shore I hail, And, as the prow light touches on the strand, I strike my red-cross flag, and bind my skiff to land. END OF VISION OF DON RODERICK. NOTES. INTRODUCTION. NOTE A. 'And Cattraeth's glens with voice of triumph rung, And mystic Merlin harp'd, and gray-hair'd Llywarch sung.'-P. 261. THIS locality may startle those readers who do not recollect that much of the ancient poetry preserved in Wales refers less to the history of the principality to which that name is now limited, than to events which happened in the North-west of England, and South-west of Scotland, where the Britons for a long time made a stand against the Saxons. The battle of Cattraeth, lamented by the celebrated Aneurin, is supposed by the learned Dr Leyden to have been fought on the skirts of Ettrick forest. It is known to the English reader by the paraphrase of Gray, beginning, 'Had I but the torrent's might, With headlong rage and wild affright,' &c. But it is not so generally known that the champions mourned in this beautiful dirge were the British inhabitants of Edinburgh, who were cut off by the Saxons of Deiria, or Northumberland, about the latter part of the sixth century.-TURNER'S History of the Anglo-Saxons, edition 1799, vol. i. p. 222.— Llywarch, the celebrated bard and monarch, was prince of Argood, in Cumberland; and his youthful exploits were performed upon the Border, although in his age he was driven into Powys by the successes of the Anglo-Saxons. As for Merlin Wyllt, or the Savage, his name of Caledonian, and his retreat into the Caledonian wood, appropriates him to Scotland. Fordun dedicates the thirty-first chapter of the third book of his Scoto-Chronicon, to a narration of the death of this celebrated bard and prophet near Drumelziar, a village upon Tweed, which is supposed to have derived its name (quasi Tumulus Merlini) from the event. The particular spot in which he is buried is still shown, and appears, from the following quotation, to have partaken of his prophetic qualities:-'There is one thing remarkable here, which is, that the burn, called Pausayl, runs by the east side of this churchyard into the Tweed; at the side of which burn, a little below the churchyard, the famous prophet Merlin is said to be buried. The particular place of his grave, at the root of a thorn-tree, was shown me many years ago, by the old and reverend minister |