The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd Centenary Edition. With a Memoir of the Author, by the Rev. Thomas Thomson ... Poems and Life. With Many Illustrative Engravings [by James Hogg] |
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 | The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd |  |
Her brow sae fair, and her e'e sae meek,
And the pale rose bloom upon her cheek;
Her locks, and the bend of her sweet e'e bree,
And her smile, might have waken'd the dead to see.
Her snood, befringed wi' many a gem,
Was stown frae the rainbow's brightest hem;
And her rail, mair white than the snawy drift,
Was never woven aneath the lift;
It threw sic a light on the hill and the gair,
That it show'd the wild deer to her lair;
And the brown bird of the moorland fell
Upraised his head from the heather bell,
For he thought that his dawning of love and mirth,
Instead of the heaven was springing from earth;
And the fairies waken'd frae their beds of dew,
And they sang a hymn, and that hymn was new.
Oh, ladies, list! for never again
Shall you hear sic a wild, unearthly strain:
For they sang the night breeze in a swoon,
And they sang the gowd locks frae the moon;
They sang the redbreast frae the wood,
And the laverock out o' the marled cloud,
The capperkayle frae the bosky brae,
And the seraphs down frae the milky way;
And some wee feres of bloodless birth
Came out o' the worm-holes o' the earth,
And swoof'd sae lightly round the lea,
That they wadna kythe to mortal e'e;
While the eldritch sang, it rang sae shrill,
That the waesome tod yool'd on the hill:
Oh, ladies, list! for the choral band
Thus hymn'd the song of Fairy Land:
And the pale rose bloom upon her cheek;
Her locks, and the bend of her sweet e'e bree,
And her smile, might have waken'd the dead to see.
Her snood, befringed wi' many a gem,
Was stown frae the rainbow's brightest hem;
And her rail, mair white than the snawy drift,
Was never woven aneath the lift;
It threw sic a light on the hill and the gair,
That it show'd the wild deer to her lair;
And the brown bird of the moorland fell
Upraised his head from the heather bell,
For he thought that his dawning of love and mirth,
Instead of the heaven was springing from earth;
And the fairies waken'd frae their beds of dew,
And they sang a hymn, and that hymn was new.
Oh, ladies, list! for never again
Shall you hear sic a wild, unearthly strain:
For they sang the night breeze in a swoon,
And they sang the gowd locks frae the moon;
They sang the redbreast frae the wood,
And the laverock out o' the marled cloud,
The capperkayle frae the bosky brae,
And the seraphs down frae the milky way;
And some wee feres of bloodless birth
Came out o' the worm-holes o' the earth,
And swoof'd sae lightly round the lea,
That they wadna kythe to mortal e'e;
While the eldritch sang, it rang sae shrill,
That the waesome tod yool'd on the hill:
Oh, ladies, list! for the choral band
Thus hymn'd the song of Fairy Land:
| The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd | |