The Burdens of Belief and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

‘Sir Knight, the moorlands you must cross
Are high and bare,—no friendly trees
To break the blast of ocean seas,
With swollen streams, and treacherous moss.

My house is poor, but yet the bed
Of heather and the blazing fire
Are better than the shrieking choir
Of stormy spirits overhead.’

‘Scant time have I,’ the Knight replied:
‘You know the troubles of our land,
And how we're fighting hand to hand
'Gainst England, upon Scotland's side.

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Not yet has fortune lent her smiles:
Until she does I cannot rest:
And now I go to farthest west
To rouse the Clansmen of the Isles.’

‘No boat, Sir Knight, can cross the sea
Until this storm has passed away;
It will have passed by break of day,
Then gladly I'll be guide to thee.’

And so the Scot and Norman Knight,
On middle floor around the fire,
Communed and slept in far Kintyre,
Until the morning broke in light.

Then when the peaks of Arran stood
In cold dark grays against the sky,
More slowly drifted clouds on high,
More gently swayed the feathery wood.

Up pressed the two, without a stop,
Through tangled thickets of the hill,
Breasting its roughness with a will,
Until, ere noon, they reached the top.

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Beneath them, the vast ocean lay,
Still heaving with a troubled breast;
And many a wave with angry crest
Ran foaming on each rock and bay.

To north the scattered clouds had clung
Round lofty Jura's mountain line;
Whilst silver vapours, thin and fine,
O'er hills of Islay softly hung.

And southward in broad fields of light,
In dazzling shimmers of the sun,
The Antrim coast in dark had won
The nearest hailings of their sight.

And chiefly did the Rathlin Isle
Lie close below them in the clear.
And as the Knight perceived it near
He seemed to greet it with a smile.

Then, resting on broad-hilted blade,
Addressed his comrade of the day:
‘Good friend, you've kindly led my way
Now when my fortunes are in shade.

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'Tis true thou dost not know my name,
Nor hinted thou didst care to know.
With such as thou 'tis always so;
All noble natures are the same.

Nor did I tell thee all I meant,
Nor, closely, where I seek to go;
To hide, to wander to and fro
Till better days, I now am bent.

My life of venture far and wide
Has taught me care,—for fear of wile,
Not from the Scots of leal Argyle,
Yet, still, I lean to caution's side.

I told thee what I seek alone:
With Edward's claims I know no truce:
Start not, good friend,—I am The Bruce,
And I shall sit on Scotland's throne.

The levies he has brought a-field
Will melt like snow in western gale,
But our proud spirit shall not fail;
Again I'll raise the sword and shield.

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In that lone Isle below us, soon,
Hid in some hut beside the shore,
I'll bide my time, come out once more,
And wear the crown I held at Scone.

I tell thee what, in vision seen,
Upholds me oft in hopeless hour;
I know that I shall break the power
That Scotland's curse so long hath been.’

Then bowed the Scot, the son of Kay
And hailed his comrade as his king:—
‘Would I could wait beneath thy wing,
And lift with thee our standard high.’

‘Come thou no farther, friendly man,
I need no guide to what is seen.
Tell thou none else where thou hast been
Until thou see'st me in the Van.’

And when the King's re-coming sail
Had brought him to his great return,
And when he won at Bannockburn
He well remembered Ugadale.

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The lands that bore that sheltering roof,
Their rocks, their shore, their shingly cove,
In token of his kingly love,
Were chartered for Mackay's behoof.

For near six hundred years, that land
Has held his children's children well:
Still o'er and o'er they love to tell
Of Bruce's footsteps on its strand.

Nor thus alone can they approach
So nearly to those ancient days;
For, full accoutred on the ways,
They're plaided with a noble brooch,

Such as were made in elder time,
Which Bruce had gifted to their sire,
With coral, pearl, and crystal fire,
In memory of their morning climb.

And on that spot of parting ways,
Where Robert Bruce and proud Mackay
Had stood in light of sea and sky,
A stone still marks heroic days.

This poem is a true story. It is embalmed in all the traditions of the people, and the brooch given to his ancestor, as also the lands, by Robert the Bruce, are still in the worthy possession of my old friend Hector Macneal, of Ugadale.