f a start
When the flame of his heart
Impels to depart,
How he distances all!
Two bounds at a leap,
The brown hillocks to sweep,
His appointment to keep
With the doe, at her call.
With her following, the roe
From the danger of ken
Couches inly, and low,
In the haunts of the glen;
Ever watchful to hear,
Ever active to peer,
Ever deft to career,--
All ear, vision, and limb.
And though Cult[121] and Cuchullin,
With their horses and following,
Should rush to her dwelling,
And our prince[122] in his trim,
They might vainly aspire
Without rifle and fire
To ruffle or nigh her,
Her mantle to dim.
Stark-footed, lively,
Ever capering naively
With motion alive, aye,
And wax-white, in shine,
When her startle betrays
That the hounds are in chase,
The same as the base
Is the rocky decline--
She puffs from her chest,
And she ambles her crest
And disdain is express'd
In her nostril and eye;--
That eye--how it winks!
Like a sunbeam it blinks,
And it glows, and it sinks,
And is jealous and shy!
A mountaineer lynx,
Like her race that 's gone by.

CRUNLUATH (FINALE).

Her lodge is in the valley--here
No huntsman, void of notion,
Should hurry on the fallow deer,
But steal on her with caution;--
With wary step and watchfulness
To stalk her to her resting place,
Insures the gallant wight's success,
Before she is in motion.
The hunter bold should follow then,
By bog, and rock, and hollow, then,
And nestle in the gulley, then,
And watch with deep devotion
The shadows on the benty grass,
And how they come, and how they pass;
Nor must he stir, with gesture rash,
To quicken her emotion.
With nerve and eye so wary, sir,
That straight his piece may carry, sir,
He marks with care the quarry, sir,
The muzzle to repose on;
And now, the knuckle is applied,
The flint is struck, the priming tried,
Is fired, the volley has replied,
And reeks in high commotion;--
Was better powder ne'er to flint,
Nor trustier wadding of the lint--
And so we strike a telling dint,
Well done, my own Nic-Coisean![123]

[109] Anglicised into _Ben_.

[110] The deer.

[111] Stag of the first head.

[112] Pass.