Classic Poem

Night and morning were at meeting
Over Waterloo;
Cocks had sung their earliest greeting;
Faint and low they crew,
For no paly beam yet shone
On the heights of Mount Saint John;
Tempest-clouds prolonged the sway
Of timeless darkness over day;
Whirlwind, thunder-clap, and shower
Marked it a predestined hour.
Broad and frequent through the night
Flashed the sheets of levin-light;
Muskets, glancing lightnings back,
Showed the dreary bivonae
Where the soldier lay,
Chill and stiff and drenched with rain,
Wishing dawn of morn again,
Though death should come with day.

'T is at such a tide and hour
Wizard, witch, and fiend have power,
And ghastly forms through mist and shower
Gleam on the gifted ken;
And then the affrighted prophet's ear
Drinks whispers strange of fate and fear,
Presaging death and ruin near
Among the sons of men; —
Apart from Albyn's war-array,
'T was then gray Allan sleepless lay;
Gray Allan, who for many a day
Had followed stout and stern,
Where, through battle's rout and reel,
Storm of shot and edge of steel,
Led the grandson of Lochiel,
Valiant Fassiefern.
Through steel and shot he leads no more,
Low laid mid friends' and foemen's gore —
But long his native lake's wild shore,
And Sunart rough, and high Ardgower,
And Morven long shall tell,
And proud Bennevis hear with awe,
How upon bloody Quatre-Bras
Brave Cameron heard the wild hurra
Of conquest as he fell.

Lone on the outskirts of the host,
The weary sentinel held post,
And heard through darkness far aloof
The frequent clang of courser's hoof,
Where held the cloaked patrol their course
And spurred 'gainst storm the swerving horse;
But there are sounds in Allan's ear
Patrol nor sentinel may hear,
And sights before his eye aghast
Invisible to them have passed,
When down the destined plain,
'Twixt Britain and the bands of France,
Wild as marsh-borne meteor's glance,
Strange phantoms wheeled a revel dance
And doomed the future slain.
Such forms were seen, such sounds were heard,
When Scotland's James his march prepared
For Flodden's fatal plain;
Such, when he drew his ruthless sword,
As Choosers of the Slain, adored
The yet unchristened Dane.
An indistinct and phantom band,
They wheeled their ring-dance hand in hand
With gestures wild and dread:
The Seer, who watched them ride the storm,
Saw through their faint and shadowy form
The lightning's flash more red;
And still their ghastly roundelay
Was of the coming battle-fray
And of the destined dead.

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Wheel the wild dance
While lightnings glance
And thunders rattle loud,
And call the brave
To bloody grave,
To sleep without a shroud.

Our airy feet,
So light and fleet,
They do not bend the rye
That sinks its head when whirlwinds rave,
And swells again in eddying wave
As each wild gust blows by;
But still the corn
At dawn of morn
Our fatal steps that bore,
At eve lies waste,
A trampled paste
Of blackening mud and gore.

Wheel the wild dance
While lightnings glance
And thunders rattle loud,
And call the brave
To bloody grave,
To sleep without a shroud.

Wheel the wild dance!
Brave sons of France,
For you our ring makes room;
Make space full wide
For martial pride,
For banner, spear, and plume.
Approach, draw near,
Proud cuirassier!
Room for the men of steel!
Through crest and plate
The broadsword's weight
Both head and heart shall feel.

Wheel the wild dance
While lightnings glance
And thunders rattle loud,
And call the brave
To bloody grave,
To sleep without a shroud.

Sons of the spear!
You feel us near
In many a ghastly dream;
With fancy's eye
Our forms you spy,
And hear our fatal scream.
With clearer sight
Ere falls the night,
Just when to weal or woe
Your disembodied souls take flight
On trembling wing — each startled sprite
Our choir of death shall know.

Wheel the wild dance
While lightnings glance
And thunders rattle loud,
And call the brave
To bloody grave,
To sleep without a shroud.

Burst ye clouds, in tempest showers,
Redder rain shall soon be ours —
See the east grows wan —
Yield we place to sterner game,
Ere deadlier bolts and direr flame
Shall the welkin's thunders shame;
Elemental rage is tame
To the wrath of man.

At morn, gray Allan's mates with awe
Heard of the visioned sights he saw,
The legend heard him say;
But the Seer's gifted eye was dim,
Deafened his ear and stark his limb,
Ere closed that bloody day —
He sleeps far from his Highland heath, —
But often of the Dance of Death
His comrades tell the tale,
On picquet-post when ebbs the night,
And waning watch-fires glow less bright,
And dawn is glimmering pale.