BALCLUTHA’s RUINS;
Versified from Ossian.
Raise, ye, my Bards, said mighty Fingal, raise
A mournful song, in sad Moina’s praise;
Call to our hills her ghost with tuneful air,
That she may rest in peace with Morven’s fair.
The sun-beams mild on other days that shone,
Delights of ancient heroes long since gone.
I’ve seen Balclutha’s walls, but they are sad,
And dreary desolation round them spread;
The ruinous fire had rioted in the hall;
The people’s voice is heard no more at all;
And Clutha’s course was alter’d by the fall;
And there the thistle shook its lonely head,
Thro’ wither’d moss the wind a whistling made;
The skulking fox did from the window look,
And rank the tufted grass around him shook:
‘Such is the dwelling of Moina now,
The habitation of her fathers low.
Then raise ye Bards, a sweetly mournful strain,
And o’er the stranger’s land in song complain;
They only fell a little us before,
We too must one day fall and be no more.
Why build the hall, son of the winged days?
Or why with toil a stately fabric raise?
To-day thou lookest from thy tower elate;
Yet a few years, for lo! how short the date!
Then desert blasts howl in thy empty court,
And whistle round thy shield in seeming sport;
And come thou desert blast, with howling sound,
We in our little day shall be renown’d;
Still shall be heard our deeds in battles past,
And in the song of bards our name shall last;
When thou shalt fail, O! sun of heaven so bright!
If thou indeed must fail, thou mighty light!
If thou, like me, but for a season art,
Our fame shall live when thy last beams depart.