In field, in alley, tower, or hall,

The Wake was first, the Wake was all.

Alike to him the south or north, So high he held the minstrel worth, So high his ardent mind was wrought, Once of himself he scarcely thought. Dear to his heart the strain sublime, The strain admired in ancient time; And of his minstrel honours proud, He strung his harp too high, too loud.

King Edward's Dream.

THE FIFTEENTH BARD'S SONG.

The heath-cock had whirred at the break of the morn,

The moon of her tassels of silver was shorn,
When hoary King Edward lay tossing in ire,
His blood in a ferment, his bosom on fire;
His battle-files, stretched o'er the valley, were still
As Eden's pine forests that darkened the hill.

He slept but his visions were loathly and grim: How quivered his lip! and how quaked every limb! His dull moving eye showed how troubled his rest, And deep were the throbs of his labouring breast.

He saw the Scot's banner red streaming on high; The fierce Scottish warriors determined and nigh; Their columns of steel, and, bright gleaming before, The lance, the broad target, and Highland claymore.

S

And, lo! at their head, in stern glory appeared

That hero of heroes so hated and feared;

"Twas the exile of Rachrin that led the array,

And Wallace's spirit was pointing the way:

His eye was a torch, beaming ruin and wrath,
And graved on his helmet was-Vengeance or Death!

In far Ethiopia's desert domain,

Where whirlwinds new mountains up-pile on the plain,
Their crested brown billows, fierce curling on high,
O'ershadow the sun, and are tossed to the sky;
But, meeting each other, they burst and recoil,
Mix, thunder, and sink, with a reeling turmoil :
As dreadful the onset that Edward beheld,
As fast his brave legions were heaped on the field.

The plaided blue Highlander, swift as the wind,
Spread terror before him, and ruin behind.
Thick clouds of blood-vapour brood over the slain,

And Pembroke and Howard are stretched on the plain.

The chieftain he hated, all covered with blood, Still nearer and nearer approached where he stood; He could not retreat, and no succour was near"Die, scorpion!" he cried, and pursued his career. The king felt the iron retreat from the wound, No hand to uphold him, he sunk on the ground: His spirit escaped on the wings of the wind, Left terror, confusion, and carnage behind, Till on the green Pentland he thought he sat lone, And pondered on troubles and times that were gone.

He looked over meadow, broad river, and downe, From Ochel's fair mountains to Lammermore brown; He still found his heart and desires were the same; He wished to leave Scotland nor sceptre nor name.

He thought, as he lay on the green mountain thyme,

A spirit approached him in manner sublime.

At first she appeared like a streamer of light,

But still as she neared she was formed to his sight.

Her robe was the blue silken veil of the sky,

The drop of the amethyst deepened its dye;

Her crown was a helmet, emblazoned with pearl;
Her mantle the sunbeam, her bracelets the beryl;
Her hands and her feet like the bright burning levin;
Her face was the face of an angel from heaven:
Around her the winds and the echoes grew still,
And rainbows were formed in the cloud of the hill.

Like music that floats o'er the soft heaving deep,
When twilight has lulled all the breezes asleep,
The wild fairy airs in our forests that rung,
Or hymn of the sky by a seraph when sung;

So sweet were the tones on the fancy that broke,

When the Guardian of Scotland's proud mountains thus

spoke :

"What boots, mighty Edward, thy victories won?

'Tis over; thy sand of existence is run;

Thy laurels are faded, dispersed in the blast;

Thy soul from the bar of Omnipotence cast,.
To wander bewildered o'er mountain and plain,

O'er lands thou hast steeped with the blood of the slain.