Yet can the Muse from fate redeem
        Her favourites here below;
    Can check Time’s all-devouring stream
        In its eternal flow;
    Can catch the quickly-passing beam,
        And bid it for ever glow!

    2.

    The darkly-gathering clouds of night
    Had quench’d the red remains of light;
    O’er the hill and o’er the plain
    She held her dim and shadowy reign,
    And the distant billows of the main
        In boundless darkness roll’d. 
    O’er land and sea, it was silence all,
    No breezes waved the pine-wood tall,
        Or swept the lonely wold: 
    The murmurs of the lake had died,
    The reeds upon its plashy side
        No rustling motion felt;
    But o’er the world, as life were fled,
    As Nature thro’ her world were dead,
        Portentous stillness dwelt.

    3.

    On a rock of the sea young Carthon stood,
    And his lamp shone faint on the ocean-flood,
    As with both his hands he toiled to raise
    The seaward beacon’s ruddy blaze: 
    And aye the warrior, far and near,
        Explored the dark profound,
    And aye the warrior’s cautious ear
        Was watching every sound;
    But the air of night was mirk and dread,
    And all was silent around his head.

    4.

    At length, uncertain murmurs rose
        Athwart the billows grey,
    Breaking the night-air’s still repose,
        And deepening on their way: 
    He beard the dashing of the oar,
    And the long surge whitening to the shore;
    And now the broad-sailed bark appear’d,
    And now to the silvery beach it steer’d,
        And anchored in the bay.

    5.

    “What news, what news of Lochlin’s king?”
        The Chief of Lona cried: 
    “Tidings of war and death I bring,”
        The ocean-scout replied. 
    “A dreadful vow has King Haquin vow’d,
    To spread in Albin his banners proud,
    Disperse o’er forest, field, and fold,
    His hundred troops of warriors bold,
    ’Till every rock with gore shall smoke,
    And every castle own the yoke. 
    The keen remains of recent hate
    Yet burn thro’ all the Northern state,
    And many an age’s gather’d ire
    With added fury fans the fire.

    6.

    “’Twas under the shade of dark midnight
    They met at his hall, in armour dight,
        The king and his chieftains proud;
    Their lances at their sides were hung,
    And the oak-tree, blazing ’midst the throng,
    Across the hall, with flashes long,
    A broad uncertain lustre flung,
        Like a red and shifting cloud. 
    ’Twas here, to all before concealed,
    The Monarch his design revealed.

    7.