That summer morn had Roderick Dhu Surveyed the skirts of Benvenue, And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath, To view the frontiers of Menteith. All backward came with news of truce; Still lay each martial Graeme and Bruce; In Rednoch courts no horsemen wait, No banner waved on Cardross gate, On Duchray's towers no beacon shone, Nor scared the herons from Loch Con; All seemed at peace. Now wot ye why The Chieftain, with such anxious eye, Ere to the muster he repair, This western frontier scanned with care? In Benvenue's most darksome cleft, A fair, though cruel, pledge was left; For Douglas, to his promise true, That morning from the isle withdrew, And in a deep sequestered dell Had sought a low and lonely cell. By many a bard, in Celtic tongue, Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sung; A softer name the Saxons gave, And called the grot the Goblin-cave.
XXVI
It was a wild and strange retreat, As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet. The dell, upon the mountain's crest, Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast; Its trench had stayed full many a rock, Hurled by primeval earthquake shock From Benvenue's gray summit wild, And here, in random ruin piled, They frowned incumbent o'er the spot, And formed the rugged silvan grot. The oak and birch, with mingled shade, At noontide there a twilight made, Unless when short and sudden shone Some straggling beam on cliff or stone, With such a glimpse as prophet's eye Gains on thy depth, Futurity. No murmur waked the solemn still, Save tinkling of a fountain rill; But when the wind chafed with the lake, A sullen sound would upward break, With dashing hollow voice, that spoke The incessant war of wave and rock. Suspended cliffs, with hideous sway, Seemed nodding o'er the cavern gray. From such a den the wolf had sprung, In such the wild-cat leaves her young; Yet Douglas and his daughter fair Sought for a space their safety there. Gray Superstition's whisper dread Debarred the spot to vulgar tread; For there, she said, did fays resort, And satyrs hold their silvan court, By moonlight tread their mystic maze, And blast the rash beholder's gaze.
