622 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1815. 
And some, chance-poised and balanced, lay, 
So that a strippling arm might sway 
A mass no host could raise, 
In Nature’s rage at random thrown, 
Yet trembling like the Druid’s stone 
On its precarious base. 
The evening mists, with ceaseless change, 
Now clothed the mountain’s lofty range, 
Now left their foreheads bare. 
And round the skirts their mantle furl’d, 
Or on the sable waters curl’d, 
Or, on the eddying breezes whirl’d, 
Dispersed in middle air. 
And oft, condensed, at once the lower, 
When, brief, and fierce, the mountain shower 
Pours likea torrent down, 
And when return the sun’s glad beams, 
Whiten’d with foam a thousand streams 
Leap from the mountain’s crown. 
‘¢ This lake,’ said Bruce, ‘* whose barriers drear 
Are precipices sharp and sheer, 
Yielding no track for goat or deer, 
Save the black shelves we tread, 
How term you its dark waves ? and how 
Yon northern mountain's pathless brow, 
And yonder peak of dread, 
That to the evening sun uplifts 
The griesly gulphs and slaty rifts, 
Which seam its shiver’d head ?” 
*¢ Coriskin call the dark lake’s name, 
Coolin the ridge, as bards proclaim, 
From old Cuchullin, chief of fame. 
But bards, familiar in our isles 
Rather with Nature’s frowns than smiles, 
Full oft their careless humours please 
By sportive names for scenes like these. 
I would old Torquil were to show 
His Maidens with their breasts of snow, 
Or that my noble Liege were nigh 
To hear his Nurse sing lullaby ! 
(The Maids—tall cliffs with breakers white, 
The Nurse—a torrent’s roaring might, ) 
Or that your eye could see the mood 
Of Corryvrekin’s whirpool rude, | 
When dons the Hag her whiten’d hood— | 
’Tis thus our islemen’s fancy frames, | 
For scenes so stern, fantastic names.””— | 
