The Highland Broach

If to Tradition faith be due, And echoes from old verse speak true, Ere the meek Saint, Columba, bore Glad tidings to Iona's shore, No common light of nature blessed The mountain region of the west, A land where gentle manners ruled O'er men in dauntless virtues schooled, That raised, for centuries, a bar Impervious to the tide of war; Yet peaceful Arts did entrance gain Where haughty Force had striven in vain, And, 'mid the works of skilful hands, By wanderers brought from foreign lands And various climes, was not unknown The clasp that fixed the Roman Gown; The Fibula, whose shape, I ween, Still in the Highland Broach is seen, Worn at the breast of some grave Dame On road or path, or at the door Of fern-thatched Hut on heathy moor: But delicate of yore its mould, And the material finest gold; As might beseem the fairest Fair, Whether she graced a royal chair, Or shed, within a vaulted Hall, No fancied lustre on the wall Where shields of mighty Heroes hung, While Fingal heard what Ossian sung. The heroic Age expired, it slept Deep in its tomb: the bramble crept O'er Fingal's hearth; the grassy sod Grew on the floors his Sons had trod; Malvina! where art thou? Their state The noblest-born must abdicate, The fairest, while with fire and sword Come Spoilers, horde impelling horde, Must walk the sorrowing mountains, drest By ruder hands in homelier vest, Yet still the female bosom lent, And loved to borrow, ornament; Still was its inner world a place Reached by the dews of heavenly grace; Still pity to this last retreat Clove fondly; to his favourite seat Love wound his way by soft approach, Beneath a massier Highland Broach. When alternations came of rage Yet fiercer, in a darker age; And feuds, where, clan encountering clan, The weaker perished to a man; For maid and mother, when despair Might else have triumphed, baffling prayer, One small possession lacked not power, Provided in a calmer hour, To meet such need as might befall Roof, raiment, bread, or burial: For woman, even of tears bereft, The hidden silver Broach was left. As generations come and go, Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow; Fate, fortune, sweep strong powers away, And feeble, of themselves, decay; What poor abodes their heir-loom hide, In which the castle once took pride! Tokens, once kept as boasted wealth, If saved at all, are saved by stealth. Lo! ships, from seas by nature barred, Mount along ways by man prepared; And in far-stretching vales, whose streams Seek other seas, their canvas gleams. Lo! busy towns spring up, on coasts Thronged yesterday by airy ghosts; Soon, like a lingering star forlorn Among the novelties of morn, While young delights on old encroach, Will vanish the last Highland Broach. But when, from out their viewless bed, Like vapours, years have rolled and spread And this poor verse, and worthier lays, Shall yield no light of love or praise, Then, by the spade, or cleaving plough, Or torrent from the mountain's brow. Or whirlwind, reckless what his might Entombs, or forces into light, Blind Chance, a volunteer ally, That oft befriends Antiquity, And clears Oblivion from reproach, May render back the Highland Broach.