CHAPTER VII.

DONALD BAN.

I.

'Twas here

upon this very spot,

Where weeds so wildly grow,

Old Donald's log built cabin stood,

Full thirty years ago;

And he was tall and straight and fair,

The perfect type of man,

And Highland bards had sung of him,

As stalwart Donald Ban.*

He was a hunter in his youth.

Had travelled far and wide,

And knew each hill and vale and stream, From John O'Groat's to Clyde ;

Anglice Fair.

And well he loved to sit and tell,

As well I loved to hear,

Of feats of strength and daring, while He tracked the fallow deer.

The spirit of the mighty hills,
Within his breast he bore,

And how he loved to sit and sing,
Their balladical lore;

For he had treasured in his heart,

The legends and the lays,

The loves, the joys, the smiles and tears, The voice of other days.

The fields where heroes fought and fell,
The graves wherein they sleep,
And many a mountain robbers' hold,
Where captives used to weep;

The mossy cairns by strath and stream,
Renowned in Highland lay,

A strange old world of shade and seer, Has with him passed away.

And he had gazed on nature's face,

Until his spirit caught

Some strange mysterious whispers from The inner world of thought;

He loved the things far deepest, which
He could not understand,

And had a strange wild worship of
The gloomy and the grand.

Each mountain had a heart and soul,
A language of its own,

A great old monarch seated there,
Upon his cloud-built throne,
The wailing of the winter winds,
The whispers of the glen,
Were living and immortal things,
Awatching mortal men;

And how the old man grieved to think, That he should hear no more,

The earthquake wrestling with the hills, Nor Corybrechtain's roar.

II.

Ah, poor Donald, who can tell,

The heartbreak of thy last farewell,

When oppression's iron hand,

Drove thee from that mountain land,
Forced thee from the strath and fell,

From the hills you loved so well;
When you took your last adieu,
Of Benlomond in the blue,
Looked upon Ben Nevis hoar,
Never to behold him more;
When you saw the old roof-tree,
That so long had sheltered thee,
Thee and all thy stalwart race,
Set in flames before thy face;
And the tall, the lofty pine,
Emblem of thy honoured line,
Felled without remorse or shame,
Felled to feed the wasting flame,
That consumed thine humble dwelling;
Who can blame thy heart for swelling,
Who condemn the blows you gave,

To the tyrant and his slave;

Who condemn the curse that sprung,

Ever ready from your tongue;

Or the imprecations deep,

That from out thy heart would leap,

When you thought upon that day,

Often at the close of eve,

He would sit him down and grieve,
Then he'd take his pipes and play,
"Till his heart was far away;
On the spirit of the strain,
Wafted to the hills again,
Or while tears his eyelids wet,

Sing this sweet song of regret.

IV.

"Why left I my country, why did I forsake
The land of the hill for the land of the lake,
These plains are rich laden as summer's deep sigh,
But give me the bare cliffs that tower to the sky;
Where the thunderer sits in the halls of the storm,
And the eagles are screaming on mighty Cairn-Gorm;
Benledi! Benlomond! Benawe! Benvenue !

Old monarchs, forever enthroned in the blue,