Full of grief, the low winds sweep
O'er the sorrow-haunted ground;
Dark the woods where night rains weep,
Dark the hills that watch around.
Tell me, can the joys of spring
Ever make this sadness flee,
Make the woods with music ring,
And the streamlet laugh for glee?
When the summer moor is lit
With the pale fire of the broom,
And through green the shadows flit,
Still shall mirth give place to gloom?
Sad shall it be, though sun be shed
Golden bright on field and flood;
E'en the heather's crimson red
Holds the memory of blood.
Here that broken, weary band
Met the ruthless foe's array,
Where those moss-grown boulders stand,
On that dark and fatal day.
Like a phantom hope had fled,
Love to death was all in vain,
Vain, though heroes' blood was shed,
And though hearts were broke in twain.
Many a voice has cursed the name
Time has into darkness thrust,
Cruelty his only fame
In forgetfulness and dust.
Noble dead that sleep below,
We your valour ne'er forget;
Soft the heroes' rest who know
Hearts like theirs are beating yet.
Alice McDonnell of Keppoch
Photo by Alistair.
3 comments:
Battlefields always move me--no matter how peaceful now, there is a memory of what happened there--a battle fought for a deeply held belief.
My lot of Scots were in America before this war occurred and I don't know if they would have had Jacobite sympathies--
The English treatment of the Highland Scots was a dreadful thing.
Hari OM
Well-remembered.... did you see the news article last week that there are to be new archaeological surveys of the field to ascertain as much as possible about the layout of troops and such like? Between that and the echo-location of Loch Ness, Scotland's history proves ever-interesting! YAM xx
Everything man-made is so shockingly new where I live.
Hope you are well.
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