Elves and Heroes | Page 9

my love, for thee.
Thy lips that often with love would soften,?They beamed like blooms for the honey-bee;?Thy voice came ringing like some bird singing?When thou wert bringing thy gifts to me.
My fairy lover, my fairy lover,?My fair, my rare one, come back to me--?All night I'm sighing, for thee I'm crying,?I would be dying, my love, for thee.
O thou'rt forgetting the hours we met in?The Vale of Tears at the even-tide,?Or thou'd come near me to love and cheer me,?And whisper clearly, "O be my bride!"
My fairy lover, my fairy lover,?My fair, my rare one, come back to me--?All night I'm sighing, for thee I'm crying,?I would be dying, my love, for thee.
What spell can bind thee? I search to find thee?Around the knoll that thy home would be--?Where thou did'st hover, my fairy lover,?The clods will cover and comfort me.
My fairy lover, my fairy lover,?My fair, my rare one, come back to me--?All night I'm sighing, on thee I'm crying,?I would be dying, my love, for thee.
THE FIANS OF KNOCKFARREL.
(A Ross-shire Legend.)
I.
On steep Knockfarrel had the Fians made,?For safe retreat, a high and strong stockade?Around their dwellings. And when winter fell?And o'er Strathpeffer laid its barren spell--?When days were bleak with storm, and nights were drear?And dark and lonesome, well they loved to hear?The songs of Ossian, peerless and sublime--?Their blind, grey bard, grown old before his time,?Lamenting for his son--the young, the brave?Oscar, who fell beside the western wave?In Gavra's bloody and unequal fight.
Round Ossian would they gather in the night,?Beseeching him for song ... And when he took?His clarsach, from the magic strings he shook?A maze of trembling music, falling sweet?As mossy waters in the summer heat;?And soft as fainting moor-winds when they leave?The fume of myrtle, on a dewy eve,?Bound flush'd and teeming tarns that all night hear?Low elfin pipings in the woodlands near.
'Twas thus he sang of love, and in a dream?The fair maids sighed to hear. But when his theme?Was the long chase that Finn and all his men?Followed with lightsome heart from glen to glen--?His song was free as morn, and clear and loud?As skylarks carolling below a cloud?In sweet June weather ... And they heard the fall?Of mountain streams, the huntsman's windy call?Across the heaving hills, the baying hound?Among the rocks, while echoes answered round--?They heard, and shared the gladness of the chase.
He sang the glories of the Fian race,?Whose fame is flashed through Alba far and wide--?Their valorous deeds he sang with joy and pride ...?When their dark foemen from the west came o'er?The ragged hills, and when on Croumba's shore?The Viking hordes descending, fought and fled--?And when brave Conn, who would avenge the Red,?By one-eyed Goll was slain. Of Finn he sang,?And Dermaid, while the clash of conflict rang?In billowy music through the heroes' hall--?And many a Fian gave the battle-call?When Ossian sang.
Haggard and old, with slow?And falt'ring steps, went Winter through the snow,?As if its dreary round would ne'er be done--?The last long winter of their days--begun?Ere yet the latest flush of falling leaves?Had faded in the breath of chilling eves;?Nor ended in the days of longer light,?When dawn and eve encroached upon the night--?A weary time it was! The long Strath lay?Snow-wreathed and pathless, and from day to day?The tempests raved across the low'ring skies,?And they grew weak and pale, with hollow eyes,?The while their stores shrank low, waiting the dawn?Of that sweet season when through woodlands wan?Fresh flowers flutter and the wild birds sing--?For Winter on the forelock of the Spring?Its icy fingers laid. The huntsmen pined?In their dim dwellings, wearily confined,?While the loud, hungry tempest held its sway--?The red-eyed wolves grew bold and came by day,?And birds fell frozen in the snow.
Then through?The trackless Strath a balmy south wind blew?To usher lusty Spring. Lo! in a night?The snows 'gan shrinking upon plain and height,?And morning broke in brightness to the sound?Of falling waters, while a peace profound?Possessed the world around them, and the blue?Bared heaven above ... Then all the Fians knew?That Winter's spell was broken, and each one?Made glad obeisance to the golden sun.
Three days around Knockfarrel they pursued?The chase across the hills and through the wood,?Round Ussie Loch and Dingwall's soundless shore;?But meagre were the burdens that they bore?At even to their dwellings. To the west?"But sorrow not," said Finn, when all dismay'd?They hastened on a drear and bootless quest--?With weary steps they turned to their stockade,?"To-morrow will we hunt towards the east?To high Dunskaith, and then make gladsome feast?By night when we return."
Or ever morn?Had broken, Finn arose, and on his horn?Blew loud the huntsman's blast that round the ben?Was echoed o'er and o'er ... Then all his men?Gathered about him in the dusk, nor knew?What dim forebodings filled his heart and drew?His brows in furrowed care. His eyes a-gleam?Still stared upon the