Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)

O, HEARD ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale,

Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail?

’Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear;

And her sire and her people are called to her bier.

Glenara came first, with the mourners and shroud;

Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud;

Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around;

They matched all in silence,—they looked on the ground.

In silence they reached, over mountain and moor,

To a heath where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar;

“Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn;—

Why speak ye no word?” said Glenara the stern.

“And tell me, I charge ye, ye clan of my spouse,

Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?”

So spake the rude chieftain; no answer is made,

But each mantle, unfolding, a dagger displayed.

“I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her shroud,”

Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud;

“And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem;

Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!”

O, pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween,

When the shroud was unclosed and no lady was seen;

When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn,—

’Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn,

“I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief,

I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief;

On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem;

Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!”

In dust low the traitor has knelt to the ground,

And the desert revealed where his lady was found;

From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne;

Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn.