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(From The Lord of the Isles)
IN night the fairy prospects sink, | |
| Where Cumray’s isles with verdant link | |
| Close the fair entrance of the Clyde; | |
| The woods of Bute, no more descried, | |
| Are gone, and on the placid sea | 5 |
| The rowers plied their task with glee, | |
| While hands that knightly lances bore | |
| Impatient aid the laboring oar. | |
| The half-faced moon shone dim and pale, | |
| And glanced against the whitened sail; | 10 |
| But on that ruddy beacon-light | |
| Each steersman kept the helm aright, | |
| And oft, for such the king’s command, | |
| That all at once might reach the strand, | |
| From boat to boat loud shout and hail | 15 |
| Warned them to crowd or slacken sail. | |
| South and by west the armada bore, | |
| And near at length the Carrick shore. | |
| As less and less the distance grows, | |
| High and more high the beacon rose; | 20 |
| The light, that seemed a twinkling star, | |
| Now blazed, portentous, fierce, and far. | |
| Dark-red the heaven above it glowed, | |
| Dark-red the sea beneath it flowed, | |
| Red rose the rocks on ocean’s brim, | 25 |
| In blood-red light her islets swim; | |
| Wild scream the dazzled sea-fowl gave, | |
| Dropped from their crags on plashing wave, | |
| The deer to distant covert drew, | |
| The black-cock deemed it day, and crew. | 30 |
| Like some tall castle given to flame, | |
| O’er half the land the lustre came. | |
| “Now, good my liege, and brother sage, | |
| What think ye of mine elfin page?” | |
| “Row on!” the noble king replied, | 35 |
| “We ’ll learn the truth whate’er betide; | |
| Yet sure the beadsman and the child | |
| Could ne’er have waked that beacon wild.” | |
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