BALCLUTHA’s RUINS;

Raise, ye, my Bards, said mighty Fingal, raise A mournful song, in sad Moina’s praise; Call to our hills her ghost with tuneful air, That she may rest in peace with Morven’s fair. The sun-beams mild on other days that shone, Delights of ancient heroes long since gone. I’ve seen Balclutha’s walls, but they are sad, And dreary desolation round them spread; The ruinous fire had rioted in the hall; The people’s voice is heard no more at all; And Clutha’s course was alter’d by the fall; And there the thistle shook its lonely head, Thro’ wither’d moss the wind a whistling made; The skulking fox did from the window look, And rank the tufted grass around him shook: ‘Such is the dwelling of Moina now, The habitation of her fathers low. Then raise ye Bards, a sweetly mournful strain, And o’er the stranger’s land in song complain; They only fell a little us before, We too must one day fall and be no more. Why build the hall, son of the winged days? Or why with toil a stately fabric raise? To-day thou lookest from thy tower elate; Yet a few years, for lo! how short the date! Then desert blasts howl in thy empty court, And whistle round thy shield in seeming sport; And come thou desert blast, with howling sound, We in our little day shall be renown’d; Still shall be heard our deeds in battles past, And in the song of bards our name shall last; When thou shalt fail, O! sun of heaven so bright! If thou indeed must fail, thou mighty light! If thou, like me, but for a season art, Our fame shall live when thy last beams depart.