With all her joyful female band Had Lady Margaret sought the strand.
Loose on the breeze their tresses flew, And high their snowy arms they threw, As echoing back with shrill acclaim, And chorus wild, the Chieftain's name;While, prompt to please, with mother's art The darling passion of his heart, The Dame called Ellen to the strand, To greet her kinsman ere he land:
'Come, loiterer, come! a Douglas thou, And shun to wreathe a victor's brow?'
Reluctantly and slow, the maid The unwelcome summoning obeyed, And when a distant bugle rung, In the mid-path aside she sprung:--'List, Allan-bane! From mainland cast I hear my father's signal blast.
Be ours,' she cried, ' the skiff to guide, And waft him from the mountain-side.'
Then, like a sunbeam, swift and bright, She darted to her shallop light, And, eagerly while Roderick scanned, For her dear form, his mother's band, The islet far behind her lay, And she had landed in the bay.
