r among the broom.
Then we belted on our tartans, and our bonnets down we drew,
And we felt our broadswords' edges, and we proved them to be true,
And we pray'd the prayer of soldiers, and we cried the gathering cry,
And we clasp'd the hands of kinsmen, and we swore to do or die!
Then our leader rode before us on his war-horse black as night--
Well the Cameronian rebels knew that charger in the fight!--
And a cry of exultation from the bearded warriors rose,
For we loved the house of Claver'se, and we thought of good Montrose.
But he raised his hand for silence--"Soldiers, I have sworn a vow;
Ere the evening star shall glisten on Schehallion's lofty brow,
Either we shall rest in triumph, or another of the Graemes
Shall have died in battle harness for his country and King James!
Think upon the Royal Martyr--think of what his race endure--
Think on him whom butchers murder'd on the field of Magus Muir;--
By his sacred blood I charge ye--by the ruin'd hearth and shrine--
By the blighted hopes of Scotland--by your injuries and mine--
Strike this day as if the anvil lay beneath your blows the while,
Be they Covenanting traitors, or the brood of false Argyle!
Strike! and drive the trembling rebels backwards o'er the stormy Forth;
Let them tell their pale Convention how they fared within the North.
Let them tell that Highland honour is not to be bought nor sold,
That we scorn their Prince's anger, as we loathe his foreign gold.
Strike! and when the fight is over, if ye look in vain for me,
Where the dead are lying thickest, search for him who was Dundee!"

Loudly then the hills re-echo'd with our answer to his call,
But a deeper echo sounded in the bosoms of us all.
For the lands of wide Breadalbane, not a man who heard him speak
Would that day have left the battle. Burning eye and flushing cheek
Told the clansmen's fierce emotion, and they harder drew their breath,
For their souls were strong within them, stronger than the grasp of
death.
Soon we heard a challenge-trumpet sounding in the pass below,
And the distant tramp of horses, and the voices of the foe;
Down we crouch'd amid the bracken, till the Lowland ranks drew near,
Panting like the hounds in summer when they scent the stately deer.
From the dark defile emerging, next we saw the squadrons come,
Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers marching to the tuck of drum;
Through the scatter'd wood