Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden,[1]
Victory crown'd not your fall with applause:
Still were you happy, in death's earthy slumber,
You rest with your clan, in the caves of Braemar;[2]
The Pibroch[3] resounds, to the piper's loud number,
Your deeds, on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr.
5.
Years have roll'd on, Loch na Garr, since I left you,
Years must elapse, ere I tread you again:
Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you,
Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain:
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic,
To one who has rov'd on the mountains afar:
Oh! for the crags that are wild and majestic,
The steep, frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr.[4]
- ↑ Whether any perished in the Battle of Culloden, I am not certain; but, as many fell in the insurrection, I have used the name of the principal action, "pars pro toto."
- ↑ A tract of the Highlands so called. There is also a Castle of Braemar.
- ↑ [The Bagpipe.—Hours of Idleness. (See note, p. 133.)]
- ↑ [The love of mountains to the last made Byron
"Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,
And Loch na Garr with Ida looked o'er Troy."The Island (1823), Canto II. stanza xii.]
many of whom fought for the unfortunate Prince Charles, better known by the name of the Pretender. This branch was nearly allied by blood, as well as attachment, to the Stuarts. George, the second Earl of Huntley, married the Princess Annabella Stuart, daughter of James I. of Scotland. By her he left four sons: the third, Sir William Gordon, I have the honour to claim as one of my progenitors.
