Page:The Family Legend.pdf/21

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Where are the heath and hare-bells, from the glen, To deck my lady's chamber?

To deck my lady's chamber!

Heartless hounds! Is she not kind and gentle? spares she aught Her gen'rous stores afford, when you or yours Are sick, or lack relief? Hoards she in chests, When shipwreck'd strangers shiver on our coast, Or robe or costly mantle?—All comes forth! And when the piercing shriek of drowning mariners Breaks through the night, up-starting from her couch, To snatch, with eager haste, the flaming torch. And from the tower give notice of relief, Who comes so swiftly as her noble self? And yet ye grumble.

Ay, we needs must own, That, were she not a Campbell, fit she were To be a queen, or e'en the thing she is— Our very chieftain's dame. But, in these towers, The daughter of Argyll to be our lady!