Now flits the night bird, on the wing,
With many a wailful, warning sound;
And wild, and waste, and wanton, spring
The weed, the windle, all around.

YE great that live! be virtue yours,
And patriotism, and truth sublime;
These fled, on fame dishonour pours,
And wrecks of glory strew the gulf of Time.

VI. VICISSITUDE! of mundane things,
Beneath thy hand, what changes grow!

The cot, the castle, vassals, kings,
Uprise, and leave the land below.

THUS, where, upon the sandy shore,
Lochleven, gently billowing, flows,
The home of chiefs, in times of yore,

Embower'd KINROSS 57! thy palace rose.

THERE wont, in Caledonia's day,

Thy sovereigns to enjoy renown; And Scotia's kings, in rude array,

With laurel wreaths thy courts to crown.

AND long thy towers, now laid in dust,
Defied, unmoved, the battling gale;

And beautified thy dome august,

The graceful guardian of the ambient vale.

THE FOX had fled o'er hill and dale,
Along the sides of Lomond high,

O'er fertile Orwel's verdant vale,
And mountainets of Tulliry;

AMONG the brakes, by Devon wash'd,
Had couch'd his secret haunt within,
And seen the hounds, infuriate, dash'd,

Tumultuous, in the Caldron Linn 58.

THE kingly hunter, cheerless, tired,
Had, eastward, wound the plain across,

And, at the feast, had joy acquired,
Within the palace of Kinross.

AND, now, the night-born, downy god
Had poppies strewn around his head;
And, o'er the course he lately rode,
The youth on fancy's pinions sped.

THE charmer fast each scene renews-
He hears the shouts re-echoing wide-
He wakes-he starts-he doubts-he views
A daring baron by his side.

A FIERCE, rebellious, chieftain band
Had form'd a league of dark design,
The king to trammel, and the land

To rule with tyranny malign.

AND soon the stern, ferocious train,
By haughty Cumyn, surely, led,
The guardless mansion, dareful, gain,
And drag the monarch from his bed.

AND, flush'd with the successful deed,
Conduct him, mad with rage and shame,
To Stirling's towers, with eager speed,
And despotise in Alexander's name.

SWEET was the time, when vocal bowers Bescreen'd the chide of crystal streams,

And, by their banks, reclined on flowers, Man shunn'd, in shade, the sunny beams.

WHEN ruthless war pour'd no alarm,
In peals of horror, round the glade ;
No son of rage bared murder's arm,
And, scenting blood, no ruffian stray'd;

As, Leven! on the doleful day,

When, on his route from rites of gore, The butcher king, with fiend array,

Stain'd, as he trode, thy meadowy shore.

Dost thou not hear the solemn peal
That on the breeze of morning floats?
Awoke, at last, to Scotia's weal,

Fate thunder'd the presageful notes.

SEE! bosom'd in Lochleven's womb,
Half-viewless through the silver swell,

The GWYLLION 60, harbingers of doom,
Canoed in skiffs of sea-green shell.

As buoyant bells, at summer eve,
That play on some transparent pool,
Their downy breasts, luxuriant, heave,

And kiss the wavelets, billowing cool;