Thomas Campbell, 1777-1844, was a descendant of the famous clan of
Campbells, in Kirnan, Scotland, and was born at Glasgow. At the age of
thirteen he entered the university in that city, from which he graduated
with distinction, especially as a Greek scholar; his translations of Greek
tragedy were considered without parallel in the history of the university.
During the first year after graduation, he wrote several poems of minor
importance. He then removed to Edinburgh and adopted literature as his
profession; here his "Pleasures of Hope" was published in 1799, and
achieved immediate success. He traveled extensively on the continent, and
during his absence wrote "Lochiel's Warning," "Hohenlinden," and other
minor poems. In 1809 he published "Gertrude of Wyoming;" from 1820 to 1830
he edited the "New Monthly Magazine." In 1826 he was chosen lord rector of
the University of Glasgow, to which office he was twice reelected. He was
active in founding the University of London. During the last years of his
life he produced but little of note. He died at Boulogne, in France.
During most of his life he was in straitened pecuniary circumstances, and
ill-health and family afflictions cast a melancholy over his later years.
His poems were written with much care, and are uniformly smooth and
musical.
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Seer. Lochiel! Lochiel! beware of the day
When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight.
They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown;
Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down!
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.
But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'T is thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await
Like a love-lighted watch fire all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning,--no rider is there,
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!
Oh, weep! but thy tears can not number the dead:
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,--
Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.
Loch. Go preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer!
Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,
Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight,
This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.
Seer. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?
Proud bird of the mountain thy plume shall be torn!
Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth
From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;
But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'T is the fire shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyrie that beacons the darkness of heaven,
O crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!
For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.
Loch. False wizard, avaunt! I have marshaled my clan,
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws;
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clanronald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array--
Seer. --Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day!
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man can not cover what God would reveal:
'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring
With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king.
Lo! anointed by heaven with the vials of wrath,
Behold where he flies on his desolate path!
Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight:
Rise, rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!
'Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors;
Culloden is lost, and my country deplores.
But where is the ironbound prisoner? Where?
For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.
Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banished, forlorn,
Like a limb from his country, cast bleeding and torn?
Ah no! for a darker departure is near;
The war drum is muffled, and black is the bier;
His death bell is tolling; O mercy, dispel
Yon sight that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims.
Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown ere it ceases to beat,
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale--
Loch. Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale:
For never shall Albin a destiny meet
So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat.
Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore,
Like ocean weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,
Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,
While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field and his feet to the foe!
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the deathbed of fame.
NOTES.--Lochiel was a brave and influential Highland chieftain. He
espoused the cause of Charles Stuart, called the Pretender, who claimed
the British throne. In the preceding piece, he is supposed to be marching
with the warriors of his clan to join Charles's army. On his way he is met
by a Seer, who having, according to the popular superstition, the gift of
second-sight, or prophecy, forewarns him of the disastrous event of the
enterprise, and exhorts him to return home and avoid the destruction which
certainly awaits him, and which afterward fell upon him at the battle of
Culloden, in 1746. In this battle the Highlanders were commanded by
Charles in person, and the English by the Duke of Cumberland. The
Highlanders wore completely routed, and the Pretender's rebellion brought
to a close. He himself shortly afterward made a narrow escape by water
from the west of Scotland; hence the reference to the fugitive king.
Albin is the poetic name of Scotland, more particularly the Highlands. The
ironbound prisoner refers to Lochiel.