 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
EUPHANE SKENE
1
Between the Houses of Leith and SkeneWell-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 downWell-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.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |