Till the fires began to dwindle,
And the shots grew faint and few,
And we heard the foeman's challenge
Only in a far halloo;
Till the silence once more settled
O'er the gorges of the glen,
Broken only by the Cona
Plunging through its naked den.
Slowly from the mountain-summit
Was the drifting veil withdrawn,
And the ghastly valley glimmered
In the gray December dawn.
Better had the morning never
Dawned upon our dark despair!
Black amidst the common whiteness
Rose the spectral ruins there:
But the sight of these was nothing
More than wrings the wild dove's breast,
When she searches for her offspring
Round the relics of her nest.
For in many a spot the tartan
Peered above the wintry heap,
Marking where a dead Macdonald
Lay within his frozen sleep.
Tremblingly we scooped the covering
From each kindred victim's head,
And the living lips were burning
On the cold ones of the dead.
And I left them with their dearest--
Dearest charge had everyone--