The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

Between the Houses of Leith and Skene
Well-a-day!
A deadly feud had for ages been,
And their hate was the hate of hell, I ween,
Well-a-day!
All of the Skenes were of ruthless mood,
But the young lord Leith was meek and good.

2

Said her brothers to Euphane fair,
Well-a-day!
Your speech is like song in the morning air,
And your shining eyes, and your golden hair,
Well-a-day!
Will blind him, and bind him fast, and then
Trust us to do what is fit for men.

3

Well their meaning she understood,
Well-a-day!
And she said in her heart that it was good,
For she heired the hate of the ancient feud;
Well-a-day!
From early youth she had breathed it in,
Nor wist that it was a breath of sin.

4

She plied him now with her winsome smile,
Well-a-day!
With luring word and glance and wile;
But she lost her heart to him the while;
Well-a-day!
And the love was more than the hate had been
In the better heart of Euphane Skene.

5

A brief stolen hour in the gloaming dim,
Well-a-day!
That was all she might give to him,
Dreading the wrath of her kinsmen grim,
Well-a-day!
And every evening she meant to say,
I am not worthy, haste thee away.

6

But still as she framed her lips to speak,
Well-a-day!
Her tongue refused, for her heart was weak;
And she said, He is tender and true and meek,
Well-a-day!
And when he shall hear of my hateful game,
He will cast me off like a thing of shame.

573

7

They fell upon him with sword and dirk,
Well-a-day!
As he sat with her near to the old grey Kirk
Under the boughs of the weeping birk:
Well-a-day!
He was but one, and they were three,
They were her brothers, her lover he.

8

She held him now in a last embrace,
Well-a-day!
The hot blood spurted in her face,
The red blood plashed in their trysting-place,
Well-a-day!
And fain to stanch the cruel wound,
She rent her robes, and the gashes bound.

9

She called to him loud, and she called to him low,
Well-a-day!
In sweet love-words from the heart that flow,
And never before had she kissed him so,
Well-a-day!
The pale cold moon looked down upon
A pale cold face where the life was gone.

10

The pale cold moon that looketh down
Well-a-day!
On moor and garth, on tower and town,
On the peasant's cot and the Prince's crown,
Well-a-day!
Saw nought that night like the deep despair
Of the maiden that clasped her lover there.

11

She did not weep, and she did not moan,
Well-a-day!
But her eyes were as fire, and her heart as stone,
And she took her way to the moors alone,
Well-a-day!
With an eldritch laugh, and a snatch of song
That startled the night as she tript along.

12

Off to the moors with the whaup and fox,
Well-a-day!
Where the glede has her nest in the ragged rocks,
And the raven follows the sickly flocks;
Well-a-day!
And never again to the Kirk came she,
Nor yet where her love-haunts wont to be.

13

Summer and winter, by brooks and springs,
Well-a-day!
Weird and eerie her songs she sings,
Weird and eerie her laughter rings,
Well-a-day!
And poor folk sain them by the fire,
And milk-maids shiver in lonely byre.