Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844. Various

      It would have made a brave man’s heart

      Grow sad and sick that day,

      To watch the keen malignant eyes

      Bent down on that array.

      There stood the Whig west-country lords

      In balcony and bow,

      There sat their gaunt and wither’d dames,

      And their daughters all a-row;

      And every open window

      Was full as full might be,

      With black-robed Covenanting carles,

      That goodly sport to see!

      But when he came, though pale and wan,

      He look’d so great and high,11

      So noble was his manly front,

      So calm his steadfast eye;—

      The rabble rout forbore to shout,

      And each man held his breath,

      For well they knew the hero’s soul

      Was face to face with death.

      And then a mournful shudder

      Through all the people crept,

      And some that came to scoff at him,

      Now turn’d aside and wept.

      But onwards—always onwards,

      In silence and in gloom,

      The dreary pageant labour’d,

      Till it reach’d the house of doom:

      But first a woman’s voice was heard

      In jeer and laughter loud,12

      And an angry cry and a hiss arose

      From the heart of the tossing crowd:

      Then, as the Græme look’d upwards,

      He caught the ugly smile

      Of him who sold his King for gold—

      The master-fiend Argyle!

      The Marquis gazed a moment,

      And nothing did he say,

      But the cheek of Argyle grew ghastly pale,

      And he turn’d his eyes away.

      The painted harlot at his side,

      She shook through every limb,

      For a roar like thunder swept the street,

      And hands were clench’d at him,

      And a Saxon soldier cried aloud,

      “Back, coward, from thy place!

      For seven long years thou hast not dared

      To look him in the face.”13

      Had I been there with sword in hand

      And fifty Camerons by,

      That day through high Dunedin’s streets

      Had peal’d the slogan cry.

      Not all their troops of trampling horse,

      Nor might of mailéd men—

      Not all the rebels in the south

      Had borne us backwards then!

      Once more his foot on Highland heath

      Had stepp’d as free as air,

      Or I, and all who bore my name,

      Been laid around him there!

      It might not be. They placed him next

      Within the solemn hall,

      Where once the Scottish Kings were throned

      Amidst their nobles all.

      But there was dust of vulgar feet

      On that polluted floor,

      And perjured traitors fill’d the place

      Where good men sate before.

      With savage glee came Warristoun14

      To read the murderous doom,

      And then uprose the great Montrose

      In the middle of the room.

      “Now by my faith as belted knight,

      And by the name I bear,

      And by the red Saint Andrew’s cross

      That waves above us there—

      Ay, by a greater, mightier oath—

      And oh, that such should be!—

      By that dark stream of royal blood

      That lies ’twixt you and me—

      I have not sought in battle field

      A wreath of such renown,

      Nor dared I hope, on my dying day,

      To win the martyr’s crown!

      “There is a chamber far away

      Where sleep the good and brave,

      But a better place ye have named for me

      Than by my father’s grave.

      For truth and right, ’gainst treason’s might,

      This hand has always striven,

      And ye raise it up for a witness still

      In the eye of earth and heaven.

      Then nail my head on yonder tower—

      Give every town a limb—

      And God who made shall gather them.—

      I go from you to Him!”15

      The morning dawn’d full darkly,

      The rain came flashing down,

      And the jagged streak of the levin-bolt

      Lit up the gloomy town:

      The heavens were speaking out their wrath,

      The fatal hour was come,

      Yet ever sounded sullenly

      The trumpet and the drum.

      There was madness on the earth below,

      And anger in the sky,

      And young and old, and rich and poor,

      Came forth to see him die.

      Ah, God! That ghastly gibbet!

      How dismal ’tis to see

      The great tall spectral skeleton,

      The ladder, and the tree!

      Hark! hark! It is the clash of arms—

      The bells begin to toll—

      He is coming! he is coming!

      God’s mercy on his soul!

      One last long peal of thunder—

      The clouds are clear’d away,

      And

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