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And fondly trowed the groups to spy, Listening his cliff-born melody.

On Leven's bard with scorn he looked, His homely song he scarcely brooked; But proudly mounting on the form, Thus sung The Spirit of the Storm.

Glen-Avin.

THE NINTH BARD'S SONG.

Beyond the grizly cliffs, which guard The infant rills of Highland Dee, Where hunter's horn was never heard, Nor bugle of the forest bee;

'Mid wastes that dern and dreary lie, One mountain rears his mighty form, Disturbs the moon in passing bye,

And smiles above the thunder storm.

There Avin spreads her ample deep,
To mirror cliffs that brush the wain ;
Whose frigid eyes eternal weep,

In summer suns and Autumn rain.

There matin hymn was never sung ;
Nor vesper, save the plover's wail;
But mountain eagles breed their young,
And aërial spirits ride the gale.

An hoary sage once lingered there,
Intent to prove some mystic scene;

Though cavern deep, and forest sere,

Had whooped November's boisterous reign.

That noontide fell so stern and still,

The breath of nature seemed away;

The distant sigh of mountain rill

Alone disturbed that solemn day,

Oft had that seer, at break of morn,

Beheld the fahm glide o'er the fell; And 'neath the new moon's silver horn, The fairies dancing in the dell.

Had seen the spirits of the Glen,

In every form that Ossian knew; And wailings heard for living men,

Were never more the light to view.

But, ah! that dull foreboding day,

He saw what mortal could not bear;

A sight that scared the erne away,

And drove the wild deer from his lair.

Firm in his magic ring he stood,

When, lo! aloft on gray Cairn-Gorm,

A form appeared that chilled his blood,The giant Spirit of the Storm,

His face was like the spectre wan,

Slow gliding from the midnight isle; His stature, on the mighty plan

Of smoke-tower o'er the burning pile.

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His cap the moon-cloud's silver gray;

His staff the writhed snake, that lies
Pale, bending o'er the milky-way.

He cried, "Away! begone, begone!
Half-naked, hoary, feeble form!

How darest thou seek my realms alone,
And brave the Angel of the Storm ?”.

"And who art thou," the seer replied, "That bear'st destruction on thy brow? Whose eye no mortal can abide;

Dread mountain Spirit! what art thou ?”

"Within this desert, dank and long,

Since rolled the world a shoreless sea,

I've held my elemental throne,

66 I

The terror of thy race and thee.

wrap the sun of heaven in blood, Veiling his orient beams of light; And hide the moon in sable shroud, Far in the alcove of the night.

"I ride the red bolt's rapid wing,
High on the sweeping whirlwind sail,

And list to hear my tempests sing
Around Glen-Avin's ample wale.

"These everlasting hills are riven; Their reverend heads are bald and gray;

The Greenland waves salute the heaven,

And quench the burning stars with spray.

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