Ossian Collection > Selections from the Gaelic bards

242 HEBRIDIAN SKETCHES.
He knew near whose warm home it blazed.
To cheer the howling night.
He knew whose care had placed it there,
Amid the tempest wild,
The whilst she breathed her simple prayer —
His poor and lonely child.
'T was she who guarded well that flame
From the fierce wind and spray,
Alone, until her father came
And kissed her tears away.
Thus, on the waters wild, I ween.
On which life's bark is driven,
The Book of God has ever been
The beacon-light of heaven.
KING ROBERT THE BRUCE AND THE SPIDER.
Once, in an island of the West,
In the trying days of old,
How a great king and spider met
A story has been told.
The spider laboured at his web,
The king he looked and caught
A lesson from the constancy
With which the insect wrought.
It was a lesson needed much.
And from it there began
A history of freedom won,
By an heroic man.