With either hand, so rapid, loud,

Shook were the halls of Holyrood.

Then in a mellow tone, and strong,

He poured this wild and dreadful song.

Young Kennedy.

THE SECOND BARD'S SONG.

I.

When the gusts of October had rifled the thorn,
Had dappled the woodland, and umbered the plain,
In den of the mountain was Kennedy born:

There hushed by the tempest, baptized with the rain. His cradle, a mat that swung light on the oak;

His couch, the sear mountain-fern, spread on the rock; The white knobs of ice from the chilled nipple hung, And loud winter-torrents his lullaby sung.

II.

Unheeded he shivered, unheeded he cried;

Soon died on the breeze of the forest his moan.

To his wailings, the weary wood-echo replied;
His watcher, the wondering redbreast alone.

E

Oft gazed his young eye on the whirl of the storm,
And all the wild shades that the desert deform;
From cleft in the correi, which thunders had riven,
It oped on the pale fleeting billows of heaven.

III.

The nursling of misery, young Kennedy learned
His hunger, his thirst, and his passions to feed:
With pity for others his heart never yearned,-
Their pain was his pleasure,-their sorrow his meed.
His eye was the eagle's, the twilight his hue;
His stature like pine of the hill where he grew ;
His soul was the neal-fire, inhaled from his den,

And never knew fear, save for ghost of the glen.

IV.

His father a chief, for barbarity known,

Proscribed, and by gallant Macdougal expelled;

Where rolls the dark Teith through the valley of Down The conqueror's menial he toiled in the field.

His master he loved not, obeyed with a scowl,

Scarce smothered his hate, and his rancour of soul; When challenged, his eye and his colour would change,

His proud bosom nursing and planning revenge.

V.

Matilda, ah! woe that the wild rose's dye,

Shed over thy maiden cheek, caused thee to rue! O! why was the sphere of thy love-rolling eye

Inlaid with the diamond, and dipt in the dew? Thy father's sole daughter; his hope, and his care; The child of his age, and the child of his prayer; And thine was the heart that was gentle and kind, And light as the feather, that sports in the wind.

VI.

To her home from the Lowlands, Matilda returned; All fair was her form, and untainted her mind. Young Kennedy saw her, his appetite burned

As fierce as the moor-flame impelled by the wind.

Was it love? No; the ray his dark soul never knew,

That spark which eternity burns to renew.

"Twas the flash of desire, kindled fierce by revenge,

Which savages feel the brown desert that range.

VII.

Sweet woman! too well is thy tenderness known;
Too often deep sorrow succeeds thy love-smile;
Too oft, in a moment, thy peace overthrown,-

Fair butt of delusion, of passion, and guile!
What heart will not bleed for Matilda so gay,
To art and to long perseverance a prey

Why sings yon scared blackbird in sorrowful mood?
Why blushes the daisy deep in the green-wood?

VIII.

Sweet woman! with virtue, thou'rt lofty, thou'rt free;
Yield that, thou'rt a slave, and the mark of disdain :

No blossom of spring is beleaguered like thee,

Though brushed by the lightning, the wind, and the rain.

Matilda is fallen! With tears in her eye,
She seeks her destroyer; but only can sigh.
Matilda has fallen, and sorrow her doom,-

The flower of the valley is nipt in the bloom.

IX.

Ah! Kennedy, vengeance hangs over thine head!
Escape to thy native Glengary forlorn.

Why art thou at midnight away from thy bed?

Why quakes thy big heart at the break of the morn?

Why chatters yon Magpie on gable so loud?

Why flits yon light vision in gossamer shroud?
How came yon white doves from the window to fly,
And hover on weariless wing to the sky?

X.

Yon Pie is the prophet of terror and death:
O'er Abel's green arbour that omen was given.
Yon pale boding phantom, a messenger wraith;

Yon doves two fair angels commissioned of Heaven.