Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/108

His gray locks streaming to the gale,
And followed by his squadrons pale.
    Yes, slender aid from Fancy's glass
It needs, as round these shores we pass,
Mid glen and thicket dark, to scan
The wild MacGregor's savage clan,
Emerging, at their chieftain's call,
To foray or to festival;
While nodding plumes and tartans bright
Gleam wildly o'er each glancing height.

    But as the spectral vapors rolled
Away in vestments dropped with gold,
The healthier face of summer sky,
With the shrill bagpipe's melody,
Recals, o'er distant ocean's foam,
The fondly treasured scenes of home;
And thoughts, on angel-pinions driven,
Drop in the heart the seeds of heaven,
Those winged seeds, whose fruit sublime
Decays not with decaying time.
    The loving child, the favorite theme
Of morning hour or midnight dream,
The tender friend so lowly laid
Mid our own church-yard's mournful shade,
The smitten babe, who never more
Must sport around its father's door,
Return they not, as phantoms glide,
And silent seat them at our side?