LINES ON THE GRAVE OF A SUICIDE. By strangers left upon a lonely shore, Unknown, unhonour'd, was the friendless dead; For child to weep, or widow to deplore, There never came to his unburied head :All from his dreary habitation fled. Nor will the lantern'd fisherman at eve Launch on that water by the witches' tower, Where hellebore and hemlock seem to weave Round its dark vaults a melancholy bower For spirits of the dead at night's enchanted hour. They dread to meet thee, poor unfortunate! Whose crime it was, on Life's unfinish'd road, To feel the step-dame buffetings of fate, And render back thy being's heavy load. Ah! once, perhaps, the social passions glow'd In thy devoted bosom-and the hand That smote its kindred heart, might yet be prone To deeds of mercy. Who may understand Thy many woes, poor suicide, unknown ?— He who thy being gave shall judge of thee alone. 1801. REULLURA.1 STAR of the morn and eve, Reullura shone like thee, And well for her might Aodh grieve, Peace to their shades! the pure Culdees By foot of Saxon monk was trod, In Iona preach'd the word with power, And Reullura, beauty's star, Was the partner of his bower. But, Aodh, the roof lies low, And the thistle-down waves bleaching, And the bat flits to and fro Where the Gaël once heard thy preaching; And fallen is each column'd aisle Where the chiefs and the people knelt. 1 Reullura, in Gaëlic, signifies "beautiful star." 'Twas near that temple's goodly pile Alas, with what visions of awe Her soul in that hour was gifted— Fame said it once had graced Reullura eyed the statue's face, Even he, in this very place, To avenge my martyrdom. For, woe to the Gaël people! And Iona shall look from tower and steeple On the coming ships of the Dane; And, dames and daughters, shall all your locks With the spoiler's grasp entwine? No! some shall have shelter in caves and rocks, And the deep sea shall be mine. Baffled by me shall the Dane return, And here shall his torch in the temple burn The waves from Innisfail. His sail is on the deep e'en now, And swells to the southern gale." "Ah! know'st thou not, my bride," The holy Aodh said, "That the Saint whose form we stand beside Has for ages slept with the dead?" "He liveth, he liveth," she said again, He sits by the graves of well-loved friends And his parents remember the day of dread When the sun on the cross look'd dim, He hath roam'd the earth for ages, When the wrath of the heathen rages, His martyrs shall go into bliss for ever. Lochlin,1 appall'd, shall put up her steel, And thou shalt embark on the bounding keel; Safe shall thou pass through her hundred ships, With the Saint and a remnant of the Gaël, And the Lord will instruct thy lips To preach in Innisfail.” 2 The sun, now about to set, O'er the isles of Albyn's sea, And the phantom of many a Danish ship, And the shield of alarm was dumb, Nor did their warning till midnight come, When watch-fires burst from across the main, From Rona, and Uist, and Skye, To tell that the ships of the Dane And the red-hair'd slayers were nigh. Our islemen arose from slumbers, |