Poem by Thomas Campbell

Glenara

O, heard ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale,
Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail?
'Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear;
And her sire and her people are called to her bier.

Glenara came first, with the mourners and shroud;
Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud;
Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around;
They marched all in silence, - they looked on the ground.

In silence they reached, over mountain and moor,
To a heath where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar;
'Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn; -
Why speak ye no word?' said Glenara the stern.

'And tell me, I charge ye, ye clan of my spouse,
Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?'
So spake the rude chieftain; no answer is made.
But each mantle, unfolding, a dagger displayed.

'I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her shroud.'
Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud;
'And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem;
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!'

O, pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween,
When the shroud was unclosed and no lady was seen;
When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn, -
'Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn,

'I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief,
I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief;
On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem;
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!'

In dust low the traitor has knelt to the ground,
And the desert revealed where his lady was found;
From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne;
Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn. 

1. Lines on the Camp Hill, near Hastings
2. Napoleon and the British Sailor
3. The Exile of Erin
4. Gilderoy
5. O’Connor’s Child; Or, the Flower of Love Lies Bleeding

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