Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 154.djvu/343

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1893.]
Some Reminiscences of a Highland Chief.
339

of the house. We soon thought the confinement of Edinburgh quite dreadful, and began to wonder how long it would take us to walk or run some three hundred miles back to Glengarry again. So we measured how often round the battlements would make one mile, and each of us ran so many miles a-day.

For Glengarry Sir Walter Scott wrote the following Lament. It has been in possession of the family ever since:[1]—

Glengarry's Death-Song.

Land of the Gael, thy glory has flown!
For the star of the North from its orbit is thrown;
Dark, dark is thy sorrow, and hopeless thy pain,
For no star e'er shall beam with its lustre again,
   Glengarry—Glengarry is gone evermore,
   Glengarry—Glengarry we'll ever deplore.

O tell of the warrior who never did yield,
O tell of the chief who was falchion and shield,
O think of the patriot, most ardent and kind;
Then sigh for Glengarry in whom all were joined.

The chieftains may gather—the combatants call,
One champion is absent—that champion was all;
The bright eye of genius and valour may flame,
But who now shall light it to honour and fame.

See the light bark how toss'd! she's wrecked on the wave!
See dauntless Glengarry on the verge of the grave!

  1. ↑ Miss Macdonell writes:—

    Mavis Bank, Rothesay, 17th April 1893.

    "My father died in January 1828, and my mother came to Merchiston Castle, Edinburgh, where she lived from May 1828 to May 1830. It was there I first saw the 'Death-Song,' and was told by mother that Sir Walter Scott had written it and sent it to her. I believe she got it soon after we all came south in May 1828, and it has always been in whatever houses we lived ever since."

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