THE FIANS OF KNOCKFARREL.

On steep Knockfarrel had the Fians made,

For safe retreat, a high and strong stockade

Around their dwellings. And when winter fell

And o'er Strathpeffer laid its barren spell —

When days were bleak with storm, and nights were drear

And dark and lonesome, well they loved to hear

The songs of Ossian, peerless and sublime —

Their blind, grey bard, grown old before his time,

Lamenting for his son — the young, the brave

Oscar, who fell beside the western wave

In Gavra's bloody and unequal fight.

Round Ossian would they gather in the night,

Beseeching him for song... And when he took

His clarsach, from the magic strings he shook

A maze of trembling music, falling sweet

As mossy waters in the summer heat;

And soft as fainting moor-winds when they leave

The fume of myrtle, on a dewy eve,

Bound flush'd and teeming tarns that all night hear

Low elfin pipings in the woodlands near.

‘ Twas thus he sang of love, and in a dream

The fair maids sighed to hear. But when his theme

Was the long chase that Finn and all his men

Followed with lightsome heart from glen to glen —

His song was free as morn, and clear and loud

As skylarks carolling below a cloud

In sweet June weather... And they heard the fall

Of mountain streams, the huntsman's windy call

Across the heaving hills, the baying hound

Among the rocks, while echoes answered round —

They heard, and shared the gladness of the chase.

He sang the glories of the Fian race,

Whose fame is flashed through Alba far and wide —

Their valorous deeds he sang with joy and pride...

When their dark foemen from the west came o'er

The ragged hills, and when on Croumba's shore

The Viking hordes descending, fought and fled —

And when brave Conn, who would avenge the Red,

By one-eyed Goll was slain. Of Finn he sang,

And Dermaid, while the clash of conflict rang

In billowy music through the heroes’ hall —

And many a Fian gave the battle-call

When Ossian sang.

Haggard and old, with slow

And falt'ring steps, went Winter through the snow,

As if its dreary round would ne'er be done —

The last long winter of their days — begun

Ere yet the latest flush of falling leaves

Had faded in the breath of chilling eves;

Nor ended in the days of longer light,

When dawn and eve encroached upon the night —

A weary time it was! The long Strath lay

Snow-wreathed and pathless, and from day to day

The tempests raved across the low'ring skies,

And they grew weak and pale, with hollow eyes,

The while their stores shrank low, waiting the dawn

Of that sweet season when through woodlands wan

Fresh flowers flutter and the wild birds sing —

For Winter on the forelock of the Spring

Its icy fingers laid. The huntsmen pined

In their dim dwellings, wearily confined,

While the loud, hungry tempest held its sway —

The red-eyed wolves grew bold and came by day,

And birds fell frozen in the snow.

Then through

The trackless Strath a balmy south wind blew

To usher lusty Spring. Lo! in a night

The snows‘ gan shrinking upon plain and height,

And morning broke in brightness to the sound

Of falling waters, while a peace profound

Possessed the world around them, and the blue

Bared heaven above... Then all the Fians knew

That Winter's spell was broken, and each one

Made glad obeisance to the golden sun.

Three days around Knockfarrel they pursued

The chase across the hills and through the wood,

Round Ussie Loch and Dingwall's soundless shore;

But meagre were the burdens that they bore

At even to their dwellings. To the west

“But sorrow not,” said Finn, when all dismay'd

They hastened on a drear and bootless quest —

With weary steps they turned to their stockade,

“To-morrow will we hunt towards the east

To high Dunskaith, and then make gladsome feast

By night when we return.”

Or ever morn

Had broken, Finn arose, and on his horn

Blew loud the huntsman's blast that round the ben

Was echoed o'er and o'er... Then all his men

Gathered about him in the dusk, nor knew

What dim forebodings filled his heart and drew

His brows in furrowed care. His eyes a-gleam

Still stared upon the horrors of a dream

Of evil omen that in vain he sought

To solve... His voice came faint from battling thought,

As he to Garry spake — “Be thou the ward

Strong son of Morna: who, like thee, can guard

Our women from all peril!”... Garry turned

From Finn in sullen silence, for he yearned

To join the chase once more. In stature he

Was least of all the tribe, but none could be

More fierce in conflict, fighting in the van,

Than that grim, wolfish, and misshapen man!

Then Finn to Caoilte spake, and gave command

To hasten forth before the Fian band —

The King of Scouts was he! And like the deer

He sped to find if foemen had come near —

Fierce, swarthy hillmen, waiting at the fords

For combat eager, or red Viking hordes

From out the Northern isles... In Alba wide

No runner could keep pace by Caoilte's side,

And ere the Fians, following in his path,

Had wended from the deep and dusky strath,

He swept o'er Clyne, and heard the awesome owls

That hoot afar and near in woody Foulis,

And he had reached the slopes of fair Rosskeen

Ere Finn by Fyrish came.

The dawn broke green —

For the high huntsman of the morn had flung

His mantle o'er his back: stooping, he strung

His silver bow; then rising, bright and bold,

He shot a burning arrow of pure gold

That rent the heart of Night.

As far behind

The Fians followed, Caoilte, like the wind,

Sped on — yon son of Ronan — o'er the wide

And marshy moor, and‘ thwart the mountain side,—

By Delny's shore far-ebbed, and wan, and brown,

And through the woods of beautous Balnagown:

The roaring streams he vaulted on his spear,

And foaming torrents leapt, as he drew near

The sandy slopes of Nigg. He climbed and ran

Till high above Dunskaith he stood to scan

The outer ocean for the Viking ships,

Peering below his hand, with panting lips

A-gape, but wide and empty lay the sea

Beyond the barrier crags of Cromarty,

To the far sky-line lying blue and bare —

For no red pirate sought as yet to dare

The gloomy hazards of the fitful seas,

The gusty terrors, and the treacheries

Of fickle April and its changing skies —

And while he scanned the waves with curious eyes,

The sea-wind in his nostrils, who had spent

A long, bleak winter in Knockfarrel pent

Over the snow-wreathed Strath and buried wood,

A sense of freedom tingled in his blood —

The large life of the Ocean, heaving wide,

His heart possessed with gladness and with pride,

And he rejoiced to be alive.... Once more

He heard the drenching waves on that rough shore

Raking the shingles, and the sea-worn rocks

Sucking the brine through bared and lapping locks

Of bright, brown tangle; while the shelving ledges

Poured back the swirling waters o'er their edges;

And billows breaking on a precipice

In spouts of spray, fell spreading like a fleece.

Sullen and sunken lay the reef, with sleek

And foaming lips, before the flooded creek

Deep-bunched with arrowy weed, its green expanse

Wind-wrinkled and translucent... A bright trance

Of sun-flung splendour lay athwart the wide

Blue ocean swept with loops of silvern tide

Heavily heaving in a long, slow swell.

A lonely fisher in his coracle

Came round a headland, lifted on a wave

That bore him through the shallows to his cave,

Nor other being he saw.

The birds that flew

Clamorous about the cliffs, and diving drew

Their prey from bounteous waters, on him cast

Cold, beady eyes of wonder, wheeling past

And sliding down the wind.