Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Harp of Renfrewshire

410
A foaming cataract swells the thundering din,
And dashes headlong in the boiling linn.
Athwart this " Strait of Death " no brightening ray
Of summer sunshine finds its cheerless way :
And now — appalling thought ! — this floundering mass
Of men and horses crowd the dreary Pass ;
Pent up like sheep for slaughter, every life
Quivers beneath the traitorous Affghan's knife.
The net was spread, and, in an evil hour.
These helpless thousands fell within the power
Of fiend-like foes, who never knew to spare.
Nor ever listened to a dying prayer.
The long-planned work of treachery is done —
On every height is placed the murderous gun.
Whom deadly weapons spared, the falling snow
Wrapped in its winding sheet of death below.
Ah, me ! what scenes of horror meet the view
When war's fierce hounds of hell let loose pursue
The struggling remnant of a mighty host —
Life, hope, and home, and country, all are lost —
The trembling spirit starts in wild affright.
Closed in the hideous womb of death and night.
Brave hearts with anguish and dismay were torn,
To scan the sorrows of the coming morn.
In vain they strove to snatch a brief repose,
And cast their toil-worn limbs on hardened snows.
The ceaseless musketry with deafening boom
Pealed the dire requiem of their awful doom ;
Death breathed at midnight in the piercing blast ;
If eyes were closed in sleep, it was their last ;
Or if in troubled dreams of shortest bliss,
A vision bright might cross a scene like this,
The wretched dreamer only woke to hear
The random gun of foes still hovering near.
Delusive fancy led him far away
To native glens, Avhere sunny streamlets plaj^,