Ex Librii 
 C. K. OODEN 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 'i&JcU- 
 
 Mv 4r\UuJ 
 
 ^iil^
 
 •
 
 HILLSIDE RHYMES.
 
 I'l'BI.ISHED BY 
 
 I AMES MACLEIIOSE, GLASGOW. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. 
 
 Edinburgh, . . Edmotiston <Sr» Douglas. 
 Dublin, . . . \V. H. Smith & Son. 
 
 M DCCC LX X I I.
 
 HILLSIDE RHYMES 
 
 AMONG THE ROCKS HE WENT 
 AND STILL LOOKED UP TO SUN AND CLOUD 
 AND LISTENED TO THE WIND 
 
 ('"i las go to 
 J A M E S MACLEHOS E 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN AND Co. 
 
 1872 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 1'KINTHIj BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE.
 
 F 
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 THE GREY STONE ON DOLLAR LAW, l 
 
 THE PRIMROSE, 6 
 
 SPRING.— A REMINISCENCE, S 
 
 THE LAIRD'S TRYST, 9 
 
 THE LAIRD'S CRAVE, 12 
 
 MOORBURN IN SPRING, . . 14 
 
 THE WEIRD OF DAWYCK . . 16 
 
 MANORHEAD, . • 23 
 
 MANOR WATER, 26 
 
 MANOR WATER IN WINTER, 3 1 
 
 MARGARET TWEEDIE OF DRUMMELZIER, . . . 35 
 
 .1 WINTER SCENE 4° 

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A MIDNIGHT RAID, . . 43 
 
 YOUNG HAY OF TALLA, . . 47 
 
 AULD DA UNDER LATE, - • 54 
 
 WILL SAW THE FAIRIES 5 8 
 
 ALTA MONTIUM: AMONG THE UPLANDS, . . . 6i 
 
 MERLIN SYLVESTRIS, $2 
 
 NOTES 97
 
 HILLSIDE RHYMES.
 
 THE GREY STONE ON DOLLAR 
 LAW 
 
 Aye there it stands, the old grey stone, 
 Full five feet high above the ground, 
 
 Right in the middle of the track, 
 The benty track that winds around 
 
 The Hill of Grief, vast, broad, and high ; 
 
 It stands before the west'ring sun, 
 It looks across the farthest hills, 
 
 It hears the sough of burns far down.
 
 THE GREY STONE ON DOLLAR LAW 
 
 No scroll or name the lone stone bears, 
 A slab of whinstone, weather-grey, 
 
 Wearing the same sad quiet face 
 In summer sun and winter day. 
 
 Short grass and mosses round it creep, 
 Show a scant green at summer tide; 
 
 No care it has for present life, 
 
 The stone and shadow by its side. 
 
 What memory wert thou meant to keep, 
 Thou grey, grim thing of other years? 
 
 Stand'st thou the speechless symbol here 
 Of Faith or Hope, of Love or Tears? 
 
 In the far mists of early time, 
 
 Did heart deep stirr'd by pious fear, 
 
 Seeking its God on solemn height, 
 
 In darkling Faith thee heavenward rear?
 
 THE GREY STONE OX DOLLAR LAW 
 
 Did native Briton mourn his chief, 
 And lay him on this lonely height, 
 
 To list the voices of his sires, 
 
 In the weird gusty winds o' night ? 
 
 Or dost thou mark the sacred spot. 
 Where Merlin fell, the poet-seer. 
 
 As on the mountain solitudes 
 He flitted past, a form of tear ? 
 
 Ah ! well he lov'd the Powsail Bum, 
 Air! well he lov'd the Powsail Glen; 
 
 And there beside his fountain clear, 
 He sooth' d the frenzy of his brain. 
 
 The wayward music of the stream 
 bound echo in the poet's heart : 
 
 The fitful pulses of the burn. 
 As broken rhythm of his art.
 
 THE GREY STONE ON DOLLAR LAW 
 
 Ah, Merlin ! restless was thy life, 
 
 As the bold stream whose circles sweep 
 
 Mid rocky boulders to its close, 
 
 By thy lone grave, in calm so deep, — 
 
 In calm so deep, where placid Tweed, 
 Stills the rude stream that to it flows ; 
 
 And hushes all its rushing tide, 
 In longing for thy sweet repose. 
 
 For no one ever lov'd the Tweed, 
 Who was not lov'd by it in turn ; 
 
 It smil'd in gentle Merlin's face, 
 
 It soughs in sorrow round his bourn. 
 
 Or mark'st thou where, on darksome night, 
 In fierce Hot Trod, with panting breath, 
 
 Men press'd the reiver in his track, 
 And left him done to bloody death?
 
 THE GREY STOXE OX DOLLAR LAW 
 
 When flam'd the straw-wisp on the spear. 
 
 Swift up the Hope with rlick'ring flare. 
 Keen faces following in its wake, 
 
 Rock, pool, and stream in ruddy glare. 
 
 It mov'd a guiding light to death, 
 It mov'd a gleaming thing of air ; 
 
 And where the deed of blood was done. 
 
 As life went out, quench'd straightway there. 
 
 Stone ! In the sight of all the hills, 
 Here looking to the western sun, 
 
 Amid the sough of all the burns, 
 Thy secret wilt thou tell to none. 
 
 Thou bear' st the one sad, quiet face, 
 Let Summer woo or Winter rave ; 
 
 Thy root unseen rests in the moor, 
 Thy story in the silent grave.
 
 THE PRIMROSE 
 
 Closely does the Primrose nestle, 
 Nestle 'neath the budding tree, 
 
 Overhead the leafless branches, 
 Fain, pale flower, to shelter thee. 
 
 Op'ning on the sight 'mid bleakness, 
 While rude winds their stay prolong ; 
 
 When the Summer comes in beauty. 
 Loit'ring still the woods among. 
 
 With a modest grace so winning, 
 Lifting, with a look of love, 
 
 Thy large eyes so soft and dewy 
 To the pure light from above.
 
 THE PRIMROSE 
 
 Sparkle on thy green leaves, gem-like, 
 Pearly rain-drops, softly clear, 
 
 Gently shed from heaven upon thee, 
 Best lov'd of the youthful year. 
 
 Holiest spot of all the woodland 
 Is thy shelter'd, shady place, 
 
 Happiest in thy quiet smile, and 
 In the blessing of thy face.
 
 8 
 
 SPRING— A REMINISCENCE 
 
 In days of Spring, now long ago, that rise 
 
 In holy light upon the memory, 
 
 'Mid sunny glints on morns of April days, 
 
 Soft winds at noon, spring notes of happy birds, 
 
 And buds upon the trees, and all the greenness 
 
 Of the early grass, — O well do I recall 
 
 The first fresh feelings of the heart that filled 
 
 At sight of crocus and of snowdrop fair 
 
 On sunny bank that slop'd to the clear stream ; 
 
 And how, a wond'ring child, I stood subdued 
 
 By the new beauty which I would not harm, 
 
 Feeling it sacred as the life of God. 
 
 And now, on looking back, nothing stands out, 
 
 In a long lapse of time, save that green bank, 
 
 Whereon the circles of the years were told 
 
 By the return of those sweet lowly flowers.
 
 THE LAIRD'S TRYST 
 
 " Ye'll no gang wi' the Laird the nicht, Ailie, 
 Ye'll no gang wi' the Laird the nicht ; 
 He's o'er grand a lad for you, Ailie, 
 And maybe ye're no daeing richt." 
 
 " I'll gang wi' the Laird the nicht, John, 
 I'll gang wi' the Laird the nicht ; 
 He's mair to me than ony, John, 
 He's mair to me than the richt." 
 
 "There is nae moon the nicht, Ailie, 
 There is nae moon the nicht; 
 There are weird sounds i' the Hope, Ailie, 
 And moanings i' the Hicht.
 
 io THE LAIRD'S TRYST 
 
 " It's a dreary darksome Stell, Ailie, 
 It's a dreary darksome Stell; 
 And the burn soughs eerie by, Ailie, 
 And there's naebody there to tell." 
 
 " Dinna try to frichten me, John, 
 Dinna try to frichten me ; 
 Ye want me for yerseP, John, 
 But I wot it canna be. 
 
 "What care I for a' it's eerie, John, 
 What care I for a' it's eerie? 
 When the Laird's there himsel', John, 
 Fond love will mak it cheerie." 
 
 "Sin' the sweet Simmer time, Ailie, 
 Sin' the sweet Simmer time ; 
 Ye're heart has changed frae me, Ailie ; 
 May God forgive his crime.
 
 THE LAIRD'S TRYST n 
 
 "It's a dreary darksome Stell, Ailie, 
 It's a dreary darksome Stell ; 
 And there's a new howkit grave, Ailie, 
 For your unborn bairn and yoursel'. 
 
 "Tween the rude stroke and the fa', Ailie, 
 'Tween the rude stroke and the fa' ; 
 God's grace licht on your face, Ailie, 
 On your face ere ye pass awa'."
 
 12 
 
 THE LAIRD'S GRA VE 
 
 Lang years have gane sin' trystin' time, 
 The Laird's locks now are thin and gray, 
 
 At Kirk or Market he has been 
 Never once sin' the trystin' day. 
 
 By himsel' he daunders on the bill, 
 Aye seeing, in the gloamin' lone, 
 
 The vision of a pale young face, 
 And hearing aye a piteous moan. 
 
 In thick o' the Stell they found him deid, 
 Deid hangin' on the trystin' tree, 
 
 Aye haunted by the pale fair face, 
 Weary of the weird he had to dree.
 
 THE LAIRD'S GRAVE 
 
 They yirded him in unhallow'd ground, 
 The Laird that made awa' \vi' himsel' ; 
 
 In a hole beneath the dark fir boughs, 
 In the far, deep shade of the dreary Stell. 
 
 A mound above him fenc'd by fear, 
 
 Not once ev'n ting'd by green of Spring, 
 
 Or lit by smile of Summer sun, 
 
 No blessing comes to the eerie thing. 
 
 He smoor'd the young life i' the red earth, 
 The red earth now lies him abune ; 
 
 And ne'er a finger o' heaven will touch't, 
 Save shudd'ring glint o' the hast'ning mune. 
 
 And then o' nights no wind doun the glen 
 That does not stay, and sough, and rave, 
 
 'Mid the wearied firs o' the gloomy Stell, 
 In whose heart lies the unhallow'd grave.
 
 14 
 
 MO OR BURN IN SPRING 
 
 Oft on a dusky night of March, I've watch'd 
 The hills a-glo\v with moorburn, — crescent lines 
 Of fiery tongues, leaping along, and fast 
 Up-licking in their round the crackling heath; — 
 Aye snatching impulse from the facing wind, 
 Wav'ring, inconstant, and yet pressing on 
 Fatefully, as a spirit that, conscious 
 Of its fierce strength, plays free with its resolve, 
 Yet in the end fails not to gain its goal. 
 The glowing circle moves, a heart of fire, 
 Gleaming amid the dim and trailing smoke, 
 That falls and rises on the fitful air.
 
 MOORBL'RiV IN SPUING 1 5 
 
 Sometimes far east, above the umber'd hills, 
 The moon would rise, large-orb'd, and steadily, 
 In silent power of heavenly influence, 
 Subdue the shifting, chequer' d scene of earth. 
 To perfect oneness with her own clear beauty. 
 Then I would long, with bounding heart, to be 
 Away among the fiery-crested hills, 
 Or wander 'mid the deep'nings of the glens.
 
 i6 
 
 THE WEIRD OF DAWYCK 
 
 Old Dawyck was late late on the hill, 
 The gloamin' shade came slowly down, 
 
 O'er crescent brow of massive Scrape, 
 
 Where red scaurs cleave the heather brown. 
 
 The Peel had stood 'mid its old wood 
 
 Enfolded by its guardian hill, 
 Now bright in gleam, now deep in shade, 
 
 Through far back years of good and ill. 
 
 The old grey home of a stalwart race, 
 Had answer'd quick all fierce alarms 
 
 Of Border foe and midnight raid, 
 By call of cresset flame to arms.
 
 THE WEIRD OF DAWYCK 17 
 
 In the dim past the first Le Vache 
 Brought name and crest from Gascony, 
 
 Where sweeps by vine-clad slopes Garonne, 
 Bright circling, to the sunny sea. 
 
 And one, a valiant Garter Knight, 
 
 Held Calais 'gainst all France's power ; 
 
 His worn and fading banner hangs 
 In the Great Hall of Windsor Tower. 
 
 In David's time, and Bruce's wars, 
 
 Were high emprises nobly done ; 
 And knightly honours grandly gain'd 
 
 By knightly deeds of sire and son. 
 
 A Vache the Douglas' mythic sword, 
 "For Tineman forg'd by fairy lore," 
 
 O'er Scottish hill and English plain, 
 
 And through far lands, stout-hearted bore ;
 
 1 8 THE WEIRD OF DAWYCK 
 
 Ev'n he who won fair Sinton's tower 
 To his lov'd lord the Douglas leal, 
 
 Stood by his side at Homildon, 
 And shar'd one death at Verneuil. 
 
 Dark mem'ries, too, of Border feuds, 
 When hand to hand the fight was crav'd, 
 
 A face upturn'd to the breaking dawn, 
 Dead by the Tweed, but honour sav'd. 
 
 A mother sought him on the haugh, 
 
 She found him near the white flower' d thorn ; 
 
 The grass red wet ; the heedless birds 
 Pip'd sweet strains to the early morn. 
 
 And in still nights on upland moor, 
 Where runlets of the burn heads croon. 
 
 Steel stroke on helm hew'd glints of light, 
 Beneath the gleam of the peaceful moon,
 
 THE WEIRD OF DA IV YC A' 
 
 That look'd with love on the stricken dead. 
 
 Shedding a calm on the clay cold face. 
 The agonies and strife of earth, 
 
 Sublim'd by touch of Heaven's grace. 
 
 Long chequer'd years of history 
 
 Had made a proud vaunt of the name. 
 
 On many a field the pennon shone — 
 " Bv deeds do we extend our fame." 
 
 " Five hundred years have come and gone. 
 The Scots' Crown has been lost and won. 
 
 They are waiting on the hill will tell 
 The Dawyck race is now undone." 
 
 So said the weird ; the old Laird felt 
 
 A heavy soreness at the heart ; 
 He had known an ingrate King and Court, 
 
 And eke the thankless patriot's part. 
 
 19
 
 20 THE WEIRD OF DAWYCK 
 
 The gloamin', creeping on from Scrape, 
 
 Was mingling now its eerie shade 
 With the grass green knowe where Dawyck Lairds 
 
 Those many hundred years were laid. 
 
 In hollow of the soughing burn, 
 
 'Tween old grave mound and high grey Peel, 
 The Laird saw there the awsome sight, 
 
 Which death alone made him reveal. 
 
 "The Weird of Dawyck came on me there, 
 The awsome weird that boded ill ; 
 
 I saw, what no one ever saw, 
 
 The dread white faces of the hill. 
 
 " Heads, bodiless heads, one after one, 
 Grew from the grey and shapeless air. — 
 
 Death's shadows, by one living man 
 In ghastly line were fronted there.
 
 THE WEIRD OF DA IVYCK 2 1 
 
 " 'Tween earth and heaven they hover'd dread. 
 
 The wavering shapes from the unseen ; 
 As if death pal'd the face of life, 
 
 Or life lent breath to what had been. 
 
 " The bodiless heads, they spake no word, 
 Pass'd beck'ning in the gloamin' still ; 
 
 Oh ! how each turn'd and look'd on me, 
 The dread white faces of the hill. 
 
 ••Of earthly forms no one was there, 
 But they I knew were my own race ; 
 
 For the saddest look in all the band, 
 Was on my own dead father's face. 
 
 "Five hundred years have come and gone. 
 
 The Scots' Crown has been lost and won, 
 They are waiting on the hill will tell 
 
 The Dawyck race is now undone.
 
 22 THE WEIRD OF DAWYCK 
 
 " And sore I fear our vaunt is vain, 
 'By deeds do we extend our fame,' 
 
 And Vache of Dawyck will be, erelong, 
 On his forefather's hills but a name."
 
 1 -» 
 
 MANORHEAD 
 
 An urn-round hollow'd glen, clos'd deep within 
 Its hills, that rise in smoothest symmetry, 
 To make for it a quiet arch of sky ; 
 A glen, in far past times deep-fill'd, and scoop'd 
 By ever-grinding ice, and wind-borne rain, — 
 The beauteous sculpture of the Unseen Hand 
 That guides insentient and unthinking powers 
 To Art's great purpose, through the ages dim, 
 And 'mid the darkness of the winter nights. 
 
 Its arch of sky in summer noon beholds, 
 From blue, calm height, the quiet depth below,
 
 24 MANORHEAD 
 
 With heaven's unbroken glory grandly fill'd. 
 
 And then, from sparse white fleeting clouds there fall 
 
 Tremulous shadows on the pastoral green,— 
 
 As passing sadness on a beauteous face, — 
 
 That speed a-down the hill-sides, o'er the hollows, 
 
 And mingle with the fitful rush of burns, 
 
 And the pathetic voice of bleating lambs. 
 
 Again, the hollow urn with deep mist fills, 
 And veils its splendour, yet gives forth a sound 
 Of hidden waters from its depths remote, 
 As if the Spirit of the hills had there 
 Withdrawn within himself, to hold lone musing, 
 Deep murmuring o'er the secrets of the glens. 
 
 But now, a breath from heaven cleaves through the 
 
 mist, 
 And bares before the ardent eye blue rifts 
 Of sky, and sunny slopes of mottled hills ;
 
 MANORHEAD 25 
 
 And then, the west'ring sun strikes slantingly, 
 
 And with a golden tide the glen o'erflows, 
 
 Of shimm'ring splendour, short-liv'd, fast pursued 
 
 Across the hollow, up the radiant slope 
 
 By hastening evening shadow, until at length 
 
 Day's one last passionate glow burns on the brow 
 
 Of the sun-fronting height, and passes thence 
 
 For ever into gloamin' of the moor.
 
 26 
 
 MANOR WATER 
 
 In its far glen, Manor outspreads its arms 
 
 To all the hills, and gathers to itself 
 
 The burnies breaking from high mossy springs, 
 
 And white streaks that fall through cleavings of the crags 
 
 From lonely lochans, where the curlews cry 
 
 And sweep o'er peaty water round blench'd stones 
 
 That speak the ceaseless alchemy of years ; 
 
 And well-eyes fring'd with fair Forget-me-not, 
 
 That here, in purest hue and slender'st form, 
 
 Wears the soft passion of its pleading face, — 
 
 Sweet child of Nature, straying in the wild, 
 
 Fearless in power of gentle grace to win 
 
 The mountain spirit, and charm him from his rudeness.
 
 MANOR WATER 27 
 
 In gather'd strength, leaps Manor to free life. 
 Then loves, in sweetest winding waywardness, 
 To stray and gleam amid the grassy haughs, 
 From foot of green to foot of heather hill ; 
 Xow hiding coy beneath the fringed hank, 
 Then rushing forth and breaking into joy 
 Amid the sun-bright music of its stones ; 
 Then hast'ning under drooping alder leaves, 
 Whose shadows float with ripples of the stream : 
 On, ever on, 'mid links of fair green haughs, 
 Circling around sedate old wooded farm-steads, 
 Each list'ning in hush'd stillness to its burn 
 That rises high upon its quiet hill, 
 And croons half-hid adown its bracken glen. 
 
 Enfolding CastlehiU's old crumbling peel, 
 
 With lichens brown, and hollow-eyed, owl-haunted, 
 
 A hoary memory from the far dim past ; 
 
 Sweet Well-bush, clasp'd in hollow of the hill,
 
 28 MANOR WATER 
 
 Forsaken home, now but a winsome name 
 Amid its wood and by its fresh green spring, 
 Where fleeting shapes are seen at early morn, 
 But hide them in the hush of open noon, 
 Yet hint a secret presence in the shade. 
 
 Lo ! ancient Woodhouse, with the Bow'd Dwarf's cot. 
 Where from his bole the awsome form peer'd grim 
 On passer-bye, — weird as the old world life 
 He lived, and lore he knew, — strangely akin 
 In shape and mien to those dread eerie things, 
 That find soul solace on the stony moor, 
 And haunt moon-shadow'd hollows of the hills ; 
 And Manor Kirk and Kirkyard where he lies, 
 Even in his grave safe kept from witches' spell, 
 His life-long dread, by charm of rowan tree. 
 
 Cademuir, dear hill, around thy grassy slopes, 
 Long dallies Manor in its lingering folds,
 
 MANOR WATER 2g 
 
 And breathes upon thee gentle ev'ning mists, 
 That thou may'st charm us with the earliest green, 
 And clothe thyself in many blended hues, 
 Glad now in sunny sparkle of the stream, 
 In gloamin' wan as is the water's face. 
 
 Free Nature here has work'd her fullest will, 
 And wove her contrasts with a skilful hand, 
 Mix'd soft and stern, the gentle and the wild, 
 Set grace in loving mood at grandeur's feet ; 
 Fus'd strength of hills, and charm of verdant haugh, 
 And gleam of stream, and shadows of the glens ; 
 Set in rare symmetry broad mountain brows, 
 Whose dark and ruddy glow of heather bloom, 
 Is streak'd and lit by blinks of tender green,— 
 Soft growing pasture and the bracken sheen,— 
 And crown'd by waving locks of lint-fair bent, 
 That from the Summer snatching sunny hues, 
 Wear them through Autumn and the fading year.
 
 30 MANOR WATER 
 
 Hills guard the strath and shut out all but heaven, 
 And flow and fall in wavy lines, and meet 
 In one amid the wild flowers of the vale, 
 Where bending woodruff sheds a sweet perfume, 
 And fragrant thyme floats on the charmed air ; 
 And o'er the whole there sleeps a summer calm. 
 Made deeper by the gentle noise of streams, — 
 As breath of holy thought and gracious feeling, — 
 For here the peace of heaven hath fallen, and here 
 The Earth and Sky are mute in sympathy.
 
 3* 
 
 MANOR WATER IN WINTER 
 
 From Cademuir to the water head, 
 
 Where for heights meet the arching sky.- 
 
 Light azure, crossed by lines of red, — - 
 On each side, broad white hill tops lie ; 
 
 Hills facing hills, rob'd pure in snow, 
 White gleaming in the frosty sun, — 
 
 In long fair slopes descending low 
 To glens of umber'd shadow dun. 
 
 Hush'd in the vale is every tone, — 
 No cry of beast, no note of bird, — 
 
 Save where the bursting stream alone, 
 Makes its full voice be hoarsely heard ;
 
 32 MANOR WATER IN WINTER 
 
 And as it breaks in circling round, 
 It sweeps the snowy hills the while, 
 
 With deeper than its summer sound, — ■ 
 With flashes of its summer smile. 
 
 It seems to let the winter rest, 
 Rest quietly on hill and lee, 
 
 With hope full swelling in its breast, 
 Again the summer sun to see, — 
 
 Once more to be itself again, 
 
 Once more to lave the summer green, 
 Once more to light the purple glen, 
 
 And glance beneath the willow sheen. 
 
 This is in truth thy lot, fair stream, 
 When each bare winter time is o'er, 
 
 To bask in April's gracious gleam, 
 And joy in summer's bounteous store.
 
 MANOR WATER IN WINTER 
 
 Cycles of change in ceaseless flow, 
 Unresting as thy coursing tide, — 
 
 Knowest thou that they come and go, 
 And dost thou ask why none abide? 
 
 Thou art but each ; we more than all ; 
 
 However constant seasons flow; 
 As light and shade upon earth's wall, 
 
 We see them come, — we see them -go. 
 
 The Spirit in us weaves in one, 
 The many cycles of the years ; 
 
 The sad regrets of times now gone, 
 Our present longings, future fears. 
 
 We grasp the change, — we feel it flow 
 
 Through winter tides and summer dells ; 
 
 And thus in inmost heart we know 
 
 The absolute soul within us dwells, — 
 
 c 

 
 ! MANOR WA TER IN WINTER 
 
 Within us dwells and feels the power 
 
 Of Nature in its every mood ; 
 One whether it in winter lower, 
 
 Or sweetly prank the summer wood. 
 
 The long full sense in human life 
 
 Of Thought which us the god-like brings, 
 
 Recks nothing of the changing strife 
 Of Nature and unconscious things. 
 
 For Thought will rise a future spring, 
 Fair as the Spring on Manor glen, 
 
 With tend'rest hue of living thing, 
 
 That ne'er will fade in hearts of men.
 
 MARGARET TWEED1E 
 OF DRUMMELZIER 
 
 Of fierce, rapacious race she came, 
 Fair Margaret Tweedie, maiden mild 
 
 And meek, as her forefathers aye 
 
 Were violent, lawless, stern, and wild. 
 
 As graceful harebell sweetly rears 
 At foot of old gnarl'd elm its form, 
 
 'Neath rugged bole and knotted bough, 
 Grown grim through centuries of storm ; 
 
 So she, last of Drummelzier's line, 
 Burst from the stock in beauty free, 
 
 The marvel that so fair a ilower 
 
 Should spring up 'neath so rude a tree.
 
 36 MARGARET TWEEDIE 
 
 A shade oft passed o'er that fair face, 
 
 Though eighteen summers scarce had roll'd, 
 
 To mould her graceful form, and lend 
 Their glimmer to her locks of gold. 
 
 "And must I leave the sparkling Tweed, 
 The cradle of Drummelzier's line, 
 My father's peel tower 'mid the wood, 
 The meadow sweet, the lowing kine, 
 
 "The sunny birk far up the burn, 
 
 That twines close with the rowan tree, 
 Beneath whose shade I sat and play'd, 
 When far I stray'd in childhood free. 
 
 " Upon a simple timid lass, 
 
 As feeble as the hill-side fern, 
 Has come a weighted load of ill, 
 Too great for oak old, strong, and stern.
 
 OF DR UMMELZIER 3 7 
 
 " A ruin'd house, a broken name, — 
 
 Thus years of strife, and years of blood, 
 Have grown into the frown of Heaven, 
 And burst on me as thunder-cloud. 
 
 " Oh ! could I wield my father's sword, 
 Or lift up my dead brother's spear, 
 I know from pulsing of my blood. 
 My mother's age were guarded here. 
 
 " Why did I dream that winsome dream, 
 When face and form were figur'd there, 
 The gracious face, the stalwart form. 
 With steel casque o'er his yellow hair? 
 
 " I lay beneath the burnie's birks, 
 That were abowing o'er my eyne, 
 I saw his shadow on the pool, 
 I saw him dusk the sunny sheen.
 
 3<S MARGARET TWEEDTE 
 
 "A passing form o' the misty hill, 
 
 A gleaming glint o' the sun-lit glen, 
 He cross'd this weary life of mine, 
 I fear 'twill ne'er be bright again ! 
 
 " Oh God ! would I had touch'd that hand, 
 Oh God ! would I had kiss'd that face, 
 Ere it had gone for once and aye 
 Into the drear void blank of space." 
 
 A message came to Margaret's bower, — 
 Two mail-clad men are in the hall. — 
 
 " The end is near ; God give me grace, 
 And strength, and heart to bear our fall." 
 
 The father, he was grim in mien, 
 
 Outspoke his purpose hard and cold ; 
 
 " No Tweedie now sits in this tower, 
 Urummelzier owns me for its lord."
 
 OF DRUMMELZIER 
 
 Ah ! little reck'd she what he said, 
 For Sight and Memory thrilling were, 
 
 By look of that young gracious face, 
 With steel casque o'er his yellow hair. 
 
 The vision 'neath the burnie's birks, — 
 The web of Fate was now unwound ; 
 
 Both face and form she knew them well, — 
 And these two souls in one were bound. 
 
 She needed not her father's sword ; 
 
 She needed not her brother's spear : 
 A fair face won the young laird's heart, 
 
 And age and youth are guarded here.
 
 4Q 
 
 A WINTER SCENE 
 
 This morn the dim and wading sun, 
 The grey-cold sky, the shadowy wood, 
 
 That wavers 'mid the creeping haze, 
 Low trailing like a broken cloud, 
 
 Bode soon the snow-drift; slow it comes; 
 
 Then fast in flow, flapp'd by the wing 
 Of North-east blast that wheels and whirls, 
 
 O'er earth's face, strong in eddying ring. 
 
 Now lowers it, dark'ning all the sight, 
 Then rises with low deep'ning sound, 
 
 Flake flutters after fluttering flake, 
 In ever-changing ceaseless round.
 
 A WINTER SCENE 41 
 
 So wayward moves the atom dance, 
 So swift and fierce its circling course, 
 
 'Twould seem as if the winter air 
 Were shiver'd by rude spirit force. 
 
 Snow thickens by the river's brink, 
 Snow floats upon its bosom wide, 
 
 The white marge meets the water wan, 
 That sweeps in wild and wintry tide. 
 
 How little like that gentle stream 
 
 That flow'd in summer's twilight hour, 
 
 O'er shadows, motionless as death, 
 
 Of rock and tree and lone grey tower. 
 
 Amid its deep encircling woods, 
 
 Old Neidpath rears its roof of snow, 
 
 As it has done through countless years, 
 
 When storms were loud, and suns were low.
 
 42 
 
 A WINTER SCENE 
 
 Hills dim and distant gird us round, 
 Their wavy lines half-seen, half-hid, 
 
 They rise into the winter storm, 
 They melt in vast infinitude. 
 
 Ah, hills ! I love you at all times, 
 I love you in your summer days, 
 
 When glints of light are on your face. 
 And heather blooms athwart your braes. 
 
 But now you touch the soul far more, 
 Thus rising dim in misty shroud, 
 
 Wild snow-drifts beating round your heads. 
 High hill-tops passing into cloud, — 
 
 With weird groups in the upper air, 
 Old fancies shaped in living form, 
 
 That flash forth from the storied past, — 
 Flash forth and revel in the storm.
 
 43 
 
 A MIDNIGHT RAID 
 
 A day of quiet cloud and soft sunlight, 
 And now the sun was down, and forth I went 
 To watch from neighb'ring hill the beacon-fires 
 That told a Queen was once again within 
 The Cheviot line that bars the Border land. 
 A mile or two of road, and then the hill 
 Is reach'd, and, as upon the height I rise, 
 Sight-filling, westward, Tinto's great broad mass, 
 Looms dark against the purple evening sky ; 
 And, fronting him, Cardon and Culter Fell. 
 His worthy peers, in silence rounded lie ; 
 From west to east, encompassing the sight. 
 Dim shapes of hills, broad-bosom'd, faintly set ; 
 The wavy line of Pentlands northward runs 
 Athwart a belt of cloud, beneath a sky
 
 44 A MIDNIGHT RAID 
 
 Of pale and fading light ; the heights in front 
 Fade slow before me in the evening mist; 
 Behind, down in the vale there lies one gleam, 
 A break of Tweed, lov'd stream of early days, 
 Now shining out sole light of all the earth ; 
 Around, the full flush' d heather fades to grey ; 
 Amid the dark, the grouse-cock springs and crows ; 
 White, staring, startled sheep together rush, 
 And flee in groups ; below, a slender mist, 
 And sound of rushing water companies 
 Me all unseen ; o'erhead, pale light of stars. 
 At length the height is gain'd, and lo ! aflame 
 Is all the Border Land; the hills, fire-topp'd, 
 Rise high against the misty weather-gleam, 
 And ruddy all the circling crown of heaven ; 
 Blaze Caldcleugh Head and bale of Ruberslaw, 
 And well does Teviot know the olden glare, 
 Shine distant lights on lonely Lammermuirs, 
 The wizard Eildons flash on fair Melrose,
 
 A MIDNIGHT RAID 
 
 45 
 
 And Dryburgh, that keeps the sacred dead, 
 
 In sympathy has caught the beacon glare 
 
 That breaks the shadows o'er the Minstrel's tomb. 
 
 The spirit stern of old world life was there, 
 
 On wavering face of fell, and ruin'd peel, 
 
 And moorland dim, and gleam of mountain bum, 
 
 And benty bridle track where reivers rode, 
 
 All weirdly blended in that umber' d light. 
 
 At length the moon arose, the autumn moon, 
 
 In mild effulgence ; bright grew ruddy fires, 
 
 And caught clear outline from the mellow beam, 
 
 Beneath the pale blue of the higher sky. 
 
 In one's heart quiet feelings, thoughts of peace 
 
 From symbols of old wars ; the past's dread things 
 
 Become our present playthings; joy for awe; 
 
 What rous'd the blood to stern and fierce resolve, 
 
 Now us'd to move it but in calmest course; 
 
 The spirit old of Border Hills unquench'd, 
 
 Fire-eyed as aye, and ready for the fray,
 
 4 6 A MIDNIGHT RAID 
 
 In ancient language speaking as of yore, 
 But with new meaning, flashing festal joy- 
 In need-fire blaze, the flush of welcome bright 
 O'ermantling all its stern old warrior face. 
 Once homewards turn'd, the winding plain was gain'd, 
 Where lay the road 'twixt hedge-rows, bord'ring trees 
 With heavy leafage, dark against the moon ; 
 On either side were corn-fields, yellowing ; 
 Between the trees the moon gleams streak'd with 
 
 white 
 The highway, dimly lit the shaded gaps 
 In hedge-rows, fill'd by busy fancy's forms. 
 But lo ! another sight, a window-lamp, 
 Descried across the fields, amid the trees, 
 Kept brightly shining by love's hands, to light 
 The homeward way, and there a sweet, fair face 
 Solicitous, and keeping watch at night; 
 And thus was old romance merg'd readily 
 In deep pure quietude of home and hearth.
 
 YOUNG HA V OF TALL A 
 
 Wild your cradle glen. 
 Young Hay of Talk, 
 Stern the wind's wild roar 
 Round the old peel tower, 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 Winter night raving, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Snowy drift smooring, 
 Loud the Linn roaring, 
 Young Hay of Talla.
 
 48 YOUNG BAY OF TALLA 
 
 Aye he heard it rush, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 As it swell'd and burst, 
 Fierce his soul was nurs'd, 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 Winterhope's wild hags, 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Gameshope dark foaming, 
 There ever roaming, 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 Hating soft even-tide, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 In the deep moon-calm 
 Finding no soul-balm, 
 Young Hay of Talla.
 
 YOUNG HAY OF TALI. A 
 
 Watch'd keen the wold-fire, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Soul leapt at wild light 
 Flash'd on gloom of night. 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 49 
 
 A sweet heart betray'd, 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Love's trust cast aside, 
 Made of her no bride, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 Mary has come and gone, 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 Back to marriage ball, 
 
 Is God over all, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla? 
 
 D
 
 50 YOUNG HAY OF TALL A 
 
 And you are here, you, 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 
 God's heaven above you, 
 
 Future before you, 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 Have you made your choice, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla ? 
 Turn'd quite from Heaven's gate, 
 Taken the fiend's fate, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla? 
 
 Night round Kirk o' Field, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Light faint in the room, 
 Darnley sleeps in gloom, 
 Young Hay of Talla.
 
 YOUNG HAY OF TALL A 
 
 Heavy the oaken stair. 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Lierht there your foot-fall, 
 See none answers call, 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 5i 
 
 Shadow by bed-side, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Noise in the dull dark. 
 Does sleeper now hark. 
 Young Hay of Talla? 
 
 Yes ! sure he moves ! Yes 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Grasp the living throat, 
 Have you the grip got. 
 Young Hay of Talla?
 
 YOUNG HAY OF TALLA 
 
 Ah ! the young form moves, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Hold him grim, — hold grim, 
 Till quivers not a limb, 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 Now the dread deed's done, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Throw the corpse o'er the wall, 
 Give it dead dog's fall, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 High before heaven, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Standing this winter morn, 
 Ah, how sore forlorn ! 
 Young Hay of Talla.
 
 YOUNG HAY OF TALL A 
 
 Reaping a life's fruit, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 Getting no man's ruth, 
 Passing, oh ! where, in youth. 
 Young Hay of Talla ? 
 
 Begg'd the dishonour'd dead, 
 
 Young Hay of Talla, 
 She you made no bride, 
 Laid you by Talla-side, 
 Young Hay of Talla.
 
 54 
 
 AULD DA UNDER LATE 
 
 A queer auld wife was Daunder Late, 
 In wee hoose by itsel', on the moor, 
 Naebody e'er cam' near the door, 
 
 The lane door o' auld Daunder Late. 
 
 A wizzen'd wife was Daunder Late, 
 Wi' grey cloak, stick, and twa grey een, 
 Peering frae under her brows, sae keen, 
 Grisly brows o' auld Daunder Late. 
 
 Aye oot o' nichts was auld Daunder Late, 
 Moonshine, or mirk, cauld, weet, or snaw, 
 Windy or lown, 'twas naething ava', 
 
 Naething ava' to auld Daunder Late.
 
 A ULD DA UNDER LA TE ^ 
 
 Out o' the darkest side o' the road, 
 A' on a sudden she'd start, like fate; 
 When a' other folks had left the gait, 
 
 Ye would aye find auld Daunder Late. 
 
 Naebody could gang o'er the moor, 
 At night gey eerie e'en at the best, 
 But ahint some howe, just like a ghaist, 
 
 Whae'd turn up but auld Daunder Late? 
 
 When fisher folk gaed oot i' the dark, 
 Wi' a tarry-licht to burn the stream, 
 What think ye wad pop out o' the gleam 
 Ahint them but auld Daunder Late? 
 
 Naebody kenn'd where frae she came,— 
 A grey wisp o' the norland blast, 
 That frae the angry cluds was cast, 
 
 Grew, some said, into auld 1 )aunder Late.
 
 56 AULD DAUNDER LATE 
 
 But others said she was no frae abune, 
 She came oot o' the hag o' the moor, 
 O' the hole they were perfectly sure, 
 Sure aboot auld Daunder Late. 
 
 Whene'er appear'd the auld wife's cloak, 
 Ilka bit bairn cleek'd in its thoomb. 
 And, keeking round, gae her plenty room, 
 Fearing the witch auld Daunder Late. 
 
 " A witch, ye gowks," growl' d Daunder Late, 
 " Can I be a witch, and no ken o't ? " 
 That was a' ony ane ever got, 
 
 Ever got frae auld Daunder Late. 
 
 But fine instinct led baith young and auld 
 To think, as genius canna tell, 
 The great power it may have in itsef, 
 It might be sae wi' Daunder Late.
 
 AULD DAUNDER LATE 57 
 
 What puzzl'd Jock Brown and a' the folk, 
 Whae would make the ways o' Heaven clear, 
 Was hoo' she was permitted here 
 
 Sae lang to tarry, auld Daunder Late. 
 
 Ae thing I ken o' auld Daunder Late, 
 She was aye to me a fearsome wife, 
 Whether or no she belanged to this life. 
 A fearsome wife auld Daunder Late.
 
 58 
 
 WILL SA W THE FAIRIES 
 
 Up in far Glensax, 
 Where the burn leaves hags, 
 Scoops out the deep crags, 
 Will saw the Fairies. 
 
 Grand glints in the glen, 
 Heather and brackens deep, 
 Rounding the burn's sweep, 
 Lov'd by the Fairies. 
 
 He an angler lone, 
 Listing the pool's tune, 
 On bright day at noon, 
 Will saw the Fairies.
 
 WILL SAW THE FAIRIES 
 
 Watching his line fall, 
 Heard behind him clear, 
 Notes as of pipes near, 
 Pipes of the Fairies. 
 
 Turn'd him round about, 
 Saw one in mantle green, 
 Sitting 'mid grassy sheen, 
 Round him the Fairies. 
 
 Old and quaint he was, 
 Pip'd he soft and sweet, 
 Dancing with swift feet, 
 Round him the Fairies. 
 
 East and west Will look'd, 
 Down threw rod and creel, 
 Head began to reel, 
 Will saw the Fairies. 
 
 59
 
 6o WILL SA W THE FAIRIES 
 
 Away down the burn, 
 Rush'd he in wild state, 
 Telling his strange fate, 
 Will saw the Fairies. 
 
 But faith was lacking, 
 Green the knowe and bare, 
 Nothing they saw there, 
 Couldn't see the Fairies. 
 
 No more to lone Glensax, 
 Will brought creel and rod, 
 Nor there was turt trod, 
 Trod e'er by Fairies. 
 
 Ah ! what we might know, 
 Could we bear the gleam 
 That lights dark life's stream. 
 Will saw the Fairies.
 
 6i 
 
 ALT A MONTI 'UM: 
 
 A M .YG THE UPLANDS 
 
 Far back in early youth, a fount of song, 
 Of simple, artless song, burst from his heart. 
 As first upwelling pure of mountain rill ; 
 A mother's lore had taught him old-world strains, 
 Unknown in books, yet natural as the airs 
 That play among the tender flowers of glens, 
 And often thrilling, as the wandering sounds 
 That strangely rise and die on upland moor ; 
 And he had visions brief of things that were, 
 In broken legend and dark half-told tale, 
 That awed the heart, gave wing to eager thought ; 
 As weird and wondrous depths of hills disclos'd, 
 For but a moment, through a rift of mist,
 
 62 ALT A MONTIUM 
 
 And then involv'd, to eye of wanderer 
 On lonely height, in blank bewildering gloom, 
 When all is left to fear and phantasy : 
 And touching stories, too, of life and death, 
 The joys and sorrows of our human lot, 
 In old grey houses that are roofless now, 
 Silent to children's voice and evening psalm, 
 Or sunk beneath green mounds, one sycamore 
 Still stretching out its wide and leafy boughs 
 Before the sun, in vain and vacant shade. 
 
 An undertone of feeling this became, 
 
 Scarce conscious, and yet fus'd with course of thought. 
 
 Aye sounding dimly in the haunted ear, 
 
 As croon of burn that, half-hid, sings its song 
 
 In hidden circlings 'neath a grassy fringe, 
 
 And is the life at heart of the green glen. 
 
 For, meanwhile, he had gone into the land 
 
 Of abstract thought, to strive with problems dark
 
 ALT. I MOXTIUM b\ 
 
 Of Man and God, of Nature and Free-Will, 
 
 Of destiny, beginning absolute, 
 
 And issue infinite of things, of forms 
 
 Of Intellect, Desire, and Feeling : — world 
 
 Of thought transcendent, whose powerful spell 
 
 Both dread and daring, holds the vision pure. 
 
 And high imagining at eager stretch, 
 
 Through mystery, through reverence and awe, 
 
 And haunting feeling of the limitless. 
 
 Like bow o'erbent returning to the straight, 
 Elastic to his native wilds he sprung, 
 And there would be long days among the hills, 
 Rejoicing in far, breezy, upland heights, 
 The beauty free of purple moorland bloom ; 
 Haunting those lone recesses where the burns 
 From high green grassy springs creep slowly forth, 
 Above the cleavings of the deep red scaurs. 
 To scoop the hollow glen, and joyous leap
 
 64 ALTA M0NT1UM 
 
 Through sunny fall to strong, deep, eddying pool; 
 There thrown aside all reason-grounded doubts, 
 All narrow aims, and self-regarding thoughts, 
 Out of himself amid the infinitude, 
 'Where Earth, and Sky, and God are all in all. 
 
 And joy he found in fairy spots of burns, 
 
 Where solitary birch, rock-rooted, droops, 
 
 And drapes with lightsome shadows from its leaves, 
 
 A lone linn-pool, that sings a song unheard, 
 
 Far up among the hills; or where a rowan, 
 
 Set high against a bit of azure sky, 
 
 Hangs out its berries red in deep ripe flush 
 
 Of waning Autumn, 'mid its yellowing leaves, 
 
 Each quivering with light motion of its own, 
 
 While all the air is still in calm of noon. 
 
 In other graver mood would tarry long 
 Where massive forehead of the hill is scor'd,
 
 ALT, I MONTIUM 65 
 
 And holed by deep dark hollow'd peaty hags, 
 Eyeless, and sullen to the sun and heavens ; 
 And broken mounds, scant-sprinkled with hill grass, 
 As wasting islands on the mountain slope, 
 Lie 'mid the sluggish oozing of black rills, 
 The slow but sure down-wearers of the world ; 
 All speaking revel fierce in winter nights, 
 When wild winds rave and tear across the moor, 
 And sounding torrents hurry down the hills, 
 And misty shapes of storm stalk high in air, 
 Their foot-prints leaving in the cloven hags, 
 Now hush'd and laid by charm of summer time. 
 
 Came soothing musings of an afternoon, 
 As slowly in the west the sun went down, 
 And great sky splendour lay beyond the hills 
 That long in outline barr'd the western heaven ; 
 For then vast shadows of great crags, and high 
 Broad hollow'd scaurs, fell long across the glens, 
 
 E
 
 66 ALT A MONTIUM 
 
 And o'er the lower hill tops, and lay calm 
 
 On faintly darken'd greenery of haughs ; 
 
 The valleys filling with a tremulous air 
 
 Of blue clear mist, that veil'd the mountain wall, 
 
 Until through growing fusion earthly mass 
 
 Commingled, and was lost, in pure ethereal form. 
 
 And often, 'mid that golden evening calm, 
 
 When daundering down the hill-side from the west, 
 
 'Mid fore-stretch'd shadows, and the softening forms 
 
 Of hills, and gleams of waters in the glens, 
 
 And quiet circling smoke, that rising spake 
 
 Of rest to man and beast, and hush of toil 
 
 On farm-stead, — wrapt in soothing mild sun-glow ; — 
 
 Such scenes as these took deep hold of the heart, 
 
 And shaped themselves in quiet phantasy, 
 
 As gleaming spots 'mid other graver thoughts, 
 
 To mental eye well-pleasing, as to sense 
 
 Appears a gracious field of yellow grain,
 
 ALT A MONTI UM 67 
 
 On hill-face hanging high, like golden shield, 
 'Mid deep, broad, bordering of dark fir-woods. 
 These fill'd the sphere of vision of the soul, 
 And sooth'd the yearning instincts of the heart, 
 For sensuous symbols of unclothed thoughts, 
 For colour, form, and emphasis of sense, 
 Wherein there came to full and conscious life, 
 Emotions, aspirations, and desires, 
 Before felt but as powers of dim unrest, 
 In depths infinite of the heart we are. 
 
 'Twas thus he came to learn how near akin 
 
 The forms and scenes of simple Nature are 
 
 To truest Art; how nature-feeling free 
 
 Is quickening soul of art, that teaches us, 
 
 And lives for men; how Poesy may grow 
 
 Within the heart, and joy in imaging 
 
 What mere wild nature keeps but for herself, — 
 
 The glow of heathery brae, and bracken leaf,
 
 68 ALTA MONTIUM 
 
 Fair grasses slender, bending to soft airs, 
 The many-colour'd mosses by spring wells, 
 The pale hill violets that wear kind looks, 
 Tracery delicate in green secret spots, — 
 With which impassion'd and pure heavenly love 
 Hath bless'd the poor lot of the barren moor, — 
 The gleaming burn that wimples 'mid green folds, 
 The soft and wayward winds that stray a-musing, 
 And fitful waters echoing from grey rocks, 
 Among the earless and untrodden hills. 
 
 He felt how fading Beauty still can charm 
 By Pathos, when first streaks of autumn-fall 
 Tell that another cycle of green life 
 Is passing from the sun and fair-fac'd earth; 
 Birks up the glens, enwrapt in golden fold, 
 And brackens round their roots pale yellowing, 
 The evening glory of their passing day; 
 And lightsome fairy spots of sunny bent,
 
 ALTA MONTIUM 69 
 
 That make a gracious splendour on the moor, 
 All through the wane of the declining year, 
 Until the wild winds come, and sough, and fall, 
 And all hill-glory of the year grows dim; 
 And then the golden grass foregoes its hue, 
 And blench'd as hair, when hoary eld has come, 
 It flutters sparse amid the breaking mist, 
 And bows its head to the resistless death, 
 That falls on things from ever flowing years. 
 
 He felt how out of Terror Grandeur grows ; 
 How sense of self, and danger, and dread pain, 
 First wakes in presence of the mighty hill, 
 Unfathom'd glen, deep flood, and moorland wide; 
 How mother Nature's sterner face we fear, 
 And Fancy conjures, in the driving mist, 
 Dark giant forms that weirdly haunt the hills, 
 Take shape, dislimb, amid the hurrying wreaths ; 
 Hears elritch sounds far down in depths of glens,
 
 ■jo ALT A MO NT I U AT 
 
 And dreaded voices in the wailing winds ; 
 Sees stern fix'd faces glaring through the rifts 
 Of storm that trail across the hill-side scaurs, 
 As if dread living shapes were lurking there, 
 Keen peering through grey eyes of riven hills ; 
 And, in the downward rush of mountain burn, 
 Hears dreaded water-spirit joy or wail, 
 In varying struggle with the mortal man 
 Who dares the venture of the angry flood. 
 
 All this he felt, and how the thought of self, 
 And self-regarding fear, lose all their power, 
 Through constant haunting of the great broad hills, 
 Through the dread joy at heart of solitude, 
 The infinite sense of earth-o'er-arching sky; 
 How free wild Nature grows into a love, 
 And holds the heart by the stern tie of awe, 
 And sense of the sublime, where welling joy 
 Comes in the place of fear, yet keepeth still
 
 ALTA MOXTIUM -, 
 
 The element of pain, as a faint shade 
 That may subdue the too-exulting heart, 
 And teach how near akin are joy and grief, 
 And all the primal movements of our souls. 
 
 How natural fear may lose its chilling power, 
 
 And terror grow to pure aesthetic sense, 
 
 The heart may learn in depths of lone Glenrath, 
 
 As looking to its burn-heads there are seen 
 
 Long sky-lines flowing over massy breadths 
 
 Of hills that wall you round in crescent fold, 
 
 And run in rapid flow down from high heaven, 
 
 To sombre glens, whose slopes are consecrate 
 
 For aye to grandeur, solitude, and awe ; 
 
 Whence seem to slide steep grey-blue breaks of stones, 
 
 Yet rest midway, scant studded by dark spots 
 
 Of clasping heather ; under mighty bulk 
 
 And power of shadow, and the stillness deep, 
 
 And stern grey look, you seek relief to sense
 
 72 ALTA MONTIUM 
 
 In the bit blue of sky beyond the height, — 
 All that is left of heaven by mass of earth, — 
 Or find companionship, 'mid loneliness, 
 In sparse white sheep that, sprinkled far below, 
 In pastoral quiet crop the green burn-braes. 
 
 And deep was Fancy mov'd when first was seen 
 The old brown-bridle track that takes its rise 
 At low burn-ford, and by long circling ways 
 Leads up the hill 'mid heather, crowfoot green, 
 As elfland path, winding round fernie brae, 
 Away across the broad and breezy height, 
 O'er hill, down glen, and through the peat-moss deep, 
 Cross unbridg'd burn and water, skirting lochs, 
 Past old peel towers that crumble by its side, — 
 Dun faded line, as story of the past. 
 For back then rush'd his thoughts to olden time, 
 When it was trod o ; nights in soft moonlight, 
 Or under pale starr'd sky, by reivers rude,
 
 ALTA MONTIUM - 3 
 
 On whose hearts hardly fell the peace of heaven ; 
 For nothing loath they were, if hot pursued, 
 To curse the bright blinks of the sacred moon; 
 But scann'd with keen, unfaltering eye the shape 
 That ominous chanc'd to loom before them dark 
 Against the weather-gleam 'twixt hill and sky, 
 And catching eager every wakening sound 
 That seem'd to stir behind them in the glen, 
 Where fierce pursuers, with the sleuth-hound red, 
 Relentless follow : d, only stayed with blood. 
 
 There king and kingly retinue have pass'd, 
 In gayest bravery, on to forest chase; 
 Long lines of lords and ready vassals pour'd, 
 Face southward turn'd, all boune for Border war. 
 There monarch stern, with purpose keen and hard, 
 Rode regally to Cockburn's lonely tower, 
 And left the widow wailing o'er her knight,— 
 That passionate wail, as if the heart of life
 
 74 ALTA MONTIUM 
 
 Then beat its strongest throb, and after puls'd 
 In low consenting fall to welcome death. 
 
 And by it on sweet Sabbath morns long gone, 
 Folks wended to St. Mary's Forest Kirk, 
 Where mass was said, and matins, softly sung, 
 Were borne in fitful swell across the Loch ; 
 And full of simple vision, there they saw, 
 In Kirk and Quire, the brier and red rose 
 That fondly met and twin'd o'er lovers' graves, 
 Who fled o' night through moor up Black Cleugh 
 
 heights, 
 Pass'd through the horror of the mortal fight, 
 Where Margaret kiss'd a father's ruddy wounds, 
 Fled from dead faces pallid on the knowe, 
 So sadly shadow' d by the soft moonlight. 
 
 And some in that quaint time perchance had been 
 Around the oaken bier, with silver lin'd,
 
 ALT A MONTI UM 75 
 
 That had been carried far from southern land, 
 On which the pallid maiden lay all night, 
 White robed for burial; but, on the morn, 
 When dead bell stirr'd sad echoes o'er the loch, 
 And sweet fac'd maidens came to mourn her youth, 
 At magic touch of lover's hand, grew bright 
 As lily flower, and, with fair rosy cheek 
 And ruby lip, sweet smil'd upon her knight. 
 
 Strange stories linger'd in those lonely glens,— 
 Of that weird eve when wizard Binram old, 
 Was laid in drear unrest, beyond hallow'd ground; 
 How, at bell-tolling by no mortal hand, 
 And voices saying words which no man knew, 
 There rose such shrieks from low depths of the 
 
 lake, 
 And such wild echoes from the darken'd hill, 
 That holy men fled from the scant fill'd grave, 
 And left bare buried that unholy priest.
 
 76 ALTA MONTIUM 
 
 And they who went by that dim bridle track, 
 And worshipp'd ardent in the old lone kirk, 
 Had other faith than that they learnt from priest, 
 Faith that grew up among their native wilds ; 
 For fervid Phantasy, art unfulfill'd 
 Of Poesy, was in their simple hearts, 
 And peopled for them links of green on hills, 
 And sunny glimmer of the birken shaw, 
 And yellow broom on braes of burnies clear, 
 And soft green knowes that cover'd secret halls, 
 With fairy folk, that rode in mantles green, 
 That pass'd and revell'd light and free as wind ; 
 Laugh'd elritch laughter up 'mong lonely crags; 
 That had no care, and knew no solemn thought, 
 And rose above our chequer'd human lot, 
 As they o'erleapt the limits of our power, 
 To life of pleasure all unmix'd with pain ; 
 And all regardless of what awes the heart, 
 For often, when the north wind tore the bent
 
 ALTA MOXTICM 
 
 77 
 
 At dead of night, lone traveller on moor 
 Would hear their bridles ring, and hear them flout, 
 With frolic sound of oaten pipe, bog-reed, 
 And hemlock clear, the eeriness around. 
 
 But lessons high of faith, self-sacrifice, 
 Lay in the lorn and mythic Fairies' creed. 
 For ah ! if mortal knight caught by their spells, 
 That they might through him pay the awful teind 
 Of sacrifice, each seventh year, to hell, 
 How hard to pluck him from their mystic hold ! 
 For at dread midnight hour on Hallow Eve, 
 The lover maid must wait on lonesome moor, 
 Her only strength and hope the cross of stone, 
 That looms dim-grey between her and the sky ; 
 Must list the elritch sounds that there foretell 
 The weird on-coming of the unearthly troop, 
 That clang forth from the hollow of the hill, 
 Until the air becomes possess'd with sound,
 
 7 8 ALT A MONTI UM 
 
 Her heart first quailing at the growing clang, 
 Then swelling strong with hope of lover sav'd ; 
 Watch signal from her knight, and hold him there, 
 What e'er he turn, be it the loathsome newt, 
 Or adder, or a bale within her arms, 
 Or red-hot gad of iron, still struggling hard 
 In fight with lover's will possess'd, and turn'd 
 Against himself, his love, and his own heart ; 
 Till victory falls to faith and stern resolve, 
 And vanish fearful forms and gruesome shapes, 
 With which the powers ot ill can blinding clothe 
 The substance of our highest, purest good. 
 
 On summer morn, in that old time, as now, 
 The mist would fill the hollow of the Loch, 
 Then wreathe in twain, and softly rise and glide 
 Up hill-sides green, and then the water still 
 Unbared its gleam, as touch'd by splendour rare 
 Of sun and sky; or toward evening fall,
 
 ALTA MONTI CM yg 
 
 When hill-tops round are radiant, it would lie 
 Hush'd in soft shade below the Forest Kirk ; 
 Then listen to aye deep'ning sough of burns, 
 As in the dusk they puls'd down moon-streak'd hills, 
 All through the silent air; but, of that time, 
 No one hath caught or limn'd the Loch's still face 
 That sought in vain the way to human hearts 
 Awed into fear by its dread loneliness. 
 Perchance in calm of Sabbath afternoon, 
 When holy thoughts were in the heart, and when 
 Dark passions had been laid by sacred hymn, 
 Some finer soul might feel the soothing scene, 
 And quiet eye be charm'd, as now, by spell 
 Of gleaming water, and deep mirror'd hills. 
 
 But feeling full the spirit of the time 
 
 Rude, bold, and daring, with shadows of dark deeds 
 
 On all the glens, men in soul sympathy 
 
 Would pause to view the Loch's tumultuous mood,
 
 80 ALTA M0NT1UM 
 
 When down the Hopes the south-west winds would 
 
 roar, 
 And drive white lines of foam in crested flow 
 Along the hurrying sweep of waters dark, 
 Barring from shore to shore the raging Mere ; 
 For strange vague power to sense was imag'd there, 
 Which, when it loses force of threat'ning fear, 
 Becomes refined to soul of the sublime. 
 
 And later, in deep spirit-stirring times, 
 
 Folks sought the hollow of the cloven hag, 
 
 ' Mid Winterhope's grey wreaths of sheltering mist, 
 
 Where Renwick told of one great sacrifice, 
 
 Ere he himself had borne in full his cross, 
 
 And hearts sublimed were round him in the wild, 
 
 And faces, God-ward turn'd in fervent prayer, 
 
 For deeply smitten, suffering flock of Christ ; 
 
 And clear uprose the plaintive moorland psalm, 
 
 Heard high above the plover's wailing cry,
 
 ALT A MONTIUM Si 
 
 From simple hearts in whom the spirit strong 
 Of hills was consecrate by heavenly grace, 
 And firmly nerv'd to meet, whene'er it came, 
 In His own time, the call to martyrdom. 
 
 And still there may be seen, on that dim track, 
 Memorial solemn that our human heart 
 Is link'd on to the past in life and death, 
 When shepherd old in plain deal coffin laid. 
 With plaid for pall spread o'er the rustic cart. 
 Is slow borne to the lonely hill of graves, 
 To share the peace of his forefathers' sleep : 
 Content, in life and death, with simple lot; 
 Now joyous with the hills in God's sunshine, 
 Then still' d to solemn thought whene'er they hid 
 Their faces reverent in His awful storm ; 
 A daily duty done all through the years, 
 And now the sum is his sole monument.
 
 82 
 
 MERLIN SYLVESTRIS 
 
 O Merlin ! woodland Merlin ! Sweeter name 
 Was never feigned for nature-worshipper — 
 Of fragrant birks and forest greenery- 
 All redolent. Now, where the birks have been, 
 Thy name still lingers, — lingers 'mid brown heath, 
 Green herbage spots, grey stones, and lochans dark, 
 And voices rare of birds, and tiny eyes 
 Of gentle flowers that timorously peep 
 On sterile moor, the orphans of the wild ; 
 True wizard ever thou hast been to me ; 
 Thy name has charnrd the wastes, and sweetly link'd 
 The present to the past, the seen to the unseen, 
 The world of sense to that dim shaded sphere 
 Where fancy stretches forth to spirit forms ;
 
 MERLIN SYLl 'ESTRIS s 3 
 
 For often in the mist thee have I seen 
 As, with blown hair, and with weird gleaming eyes. 
 That flash'd doubt, dark despair, and sore unrest. 
 Thou had'st fled newly from dread Arderydd, — 
 Companion of the blank and wandering winds, 
 Face upward turn'd to breaks of high blue heaven, 
 If haply they are there, — the Dead, the Dead ! 
 
 A vision thou of childhood's earliest days, 
 As phantom-like as wonder-loving youth 
 E'er joyed in, airy-shap'd as misty forms 
 On high Drummelzier's broad and breezy Laws, 
 Wherewith thy fleeting being aye was fused ; 
 Yet real to me as thy dark green grave-mound, 
 Whereby in youth I've sat and heard dear Tweed 
 And Powsail join for thee their waters clear 
 In one consenting wail ; for thou had'st power 
 To carry back one's thoughts to times when forms 
 Mov'd dim in history's far shadowy dawn.
 
 8 4 MERL IN S 1 'L J r ES TRIS 
 
 Unsteady as the landscape of the sky, 
 
 Which is, and then dislimbs, and takes new shape, 
 
 As it o'erleaps its limit, and becomes 
 
 Another than itself, through shading lines, 
 
 Now pure in sunlight and now stain'd with storm. 
 
 Some weirdly fable Merlin born of maid 
 And spirit of the air, a devil's son ; 
 Of serpent subtlety and wizard guile 
 Compact, whose rule of right was serving one,— 
 The King, — reckless of final laws of good, 
 His might of art given up to Uther's son 
 From birth to death ; plastic in mortal shape 
 As fancy of the fiend, or soul's fell aim 
 To purpose bent of diabolic will : 
 But not without a sweet regretful touch, 
 Within his heart, of that still gentleness 
 Which he had seen on his earth-mother's face. 
 And yet, although above all carnal love,
 
 MERLIN SYL VESTA' IS 
 
 He yielded, in fore-knowledge of his fate, 
 To woman's wiles, reveal'd his secret art, 
 Not loath, at length, to tell that wizard lore, 
 Which, through lone life had in his bosom lain 
 Untold, close locked before all living men, — 
 A barrier 'twixt him and sweet earthly love, 
 And true communing with a human heart,— 
 His soul the fuel to the pride of power, 
 And love of fame that lustrous glow'd athwart 
 The forehead of the time, as star in heaven, 
 Before the wondering worlds, flames high above 
 Its peers for a brief hour, then, heart out-burnt, 
 Sinks a chaotic mass of darken'd death. 
 
 Thus one day wandering with his Nimiane 
 [n the wide forest of Broceliande, 
 They sat them down beneath a hawthorn white 
 That was both high and fair and full of flowers, 
 And on her lap he loving laid his head ; 
 
 85
 
 86 MERLIN S 1 Z VESTRIS 
 
 Then round him in his sleep nine times she drew 
 A cerne, nine times enchantments of his art 
 She plied ; and so when he awoke he found 
 Himself in fairest, strongest tower e'er rear'd 
 On earth, and a soft lulling landscape round ; 
 But four walls, there, not made of iron or steel, 
 Timber or stone, all of enchanted air, 
 Engird him, once the wisest of the wise, 
 Now, through pierced weakness of the will, become 
 Of fools most foolish, caught in his own toils : 
 For he may pass to none, and none to him, 
 Save she alone, his Nimiane, who gain'd 
 His secret art ; at will, she comes and goes 
 Within those walls of airy adamant. 
 
 And only once since he was prison'd there 
 Has Merlin's voice been heard by mortal man, 
 To pierce this earth's clear air ; and but his voice, 
 Himself invisible, — one sad last plaint
 
 MERLIN SYLl 'ESTEIS S 7 
 
 To ear of one lone wandering knight, his own 
 And Arthur's friend, how he had been deceived ; 
 One plaint of the coarse world's forgetfulness 
 Of those that pass away,— one sad farewell,— 
 And then a mournful and unselfish prayer 
 To seek for him no more 'mong living men. 
 
 But not thus pictur'd 'mid his native wilds 
 Of ancient Cumbria which he lov'd and mourn'd ; 
 A martyr there of fading Druid creed, 
 Yet haunted by a strange remorse and fear, 
 As if his faith had link'd him to the past, 
 While in his thought he knew diviner things; 
 Among these glens then clothed in birken shaw, 
 And under hazel shade, glid Merlin seer, 
 Morvryn's son, and brother of sweet Gwendydd,— 
 The Dawn,— thus fitly named so pure and fair 
 Was she; and he enchanter, wizard, bard, 
 With art unearthly— as keen glowing light
 
 88 MERLIN SYLVESTE IS 
 
 That flashes sudden on the moorland waste, — 
 Gleams up and goes, one knows not whence or 
 
 where, — 
 And such a chequer'd flame that men recoil 
 Alike from blessing and from ban in awe. 
 
 From human haunts torn by remorse and grief, 
 Through thought of Arderydd and faces dead,— 
 King Gwendollew, and well lov'd Gwendydd's 
 
 son,- — 
 That lay upbraiding on that awful field, 
 Where Pagan Cymry yell'd against the Cross, 
 By Merlin goaded and his subtle spell ; 
 Until at evening fall scarce one was left 
 Alive of all that Pagan host, and round 
 The brighten'd cross, uprais'd, the sun-down glow 
 From heaven touch'd with pitying smile dead forms 
 Outstretch'd, of those that from the morn had warr'd 
 In impotence against the Christlike sign.
 
 MERLIN SYLl 'ESTRIS 8 9 
 
 Then Merlin, left to dark soul frenzy, fled 
 Far from the dreaded field of Arderydd, 
 
 He knew not where, nor recked, and he was found 
 
 Lone haunter of the wood of Caledon ; 
 
 Where, hardly shape of earth, rude, naked, wild, 
 
 He burst on view of holy Kentigern, 
 
 As low he knelt in solitary prayer ; 
 
 And when the fearless saint there question'd him, 
 
 Said sadly, "Merlin I, the prophet old 
 
 Of Gwendollew, who in this solitude 
 
 All hardness bear ; press ever on my sight 
 
 The dead, the dead of Arderydd, my kin. 
 
 That lie upturn'd to heaven, — Oh ! lie they now 
 
 As then, on that dread field 'twixt Liddle's tide 
 
 And Carwinelow? — I hear the shrieks that mix'd 
 
 With pulses of the stream's unheeding flow. 
 
 And woe is me ! I knew the holy Cross, 
 
 I knew the Christlike sign was heaven's own gift, 
 
 And yet I stood in knowledge against God!"
 
 QO MERLIN SYLVESTRIS 
 
 So Merlin pass'd, and long, long o'er the moor 
 Re-echoed sad, " The dead of Arderydd." 
 
 For forty years and ten, amid the hills 
 And with the burns, abode the frenzied bard, — 
 " The fosterer of song among the streams," — 
 For aye he clasp'd his harp unto his heart, 
 Sole solace of his life ; and he would rest 
 Beside his fountain on the mountain top, 
 O'ershadowed by the hazels of the hill, 
 His sad heart soothed by its soft welling sound, 
 And, gazing eager on the wide woods round, 
 There, with true poet's soul, he loved to watch 
 The gambols of the creatures of the wilds, — 
 The sole companions of his loneliness. 
 
 But most he loved and sung the quiet shade 
 Of that sweet apple-tree of blossoms fair, 
 Wide-branch'd, and delicate, and beautiful,
 
 MKKLIX SYLl 'ESTRIS 
 
 91 
 
 That secret grew at Tal Ardd, in the wood, 
 And by the stream ; for its spring leafage waked 
 Fond memory in his soul, and he would strike 
 Low soft chords on his harp, strange broken notes, 
 Like his eye changeful, which now caught, now lost, 
 The image of an orchard paradise, 
 His Prince's gift, in old day of courtly fame, 
 Wherein were seven score and seven blossom'd 
 
 trees, — 
 A forest grove on a hill's sunny slope ; 
 And therein moved a form, a slender form, — 
 As glint of sunlight straying 'mong green leaves, — 
 Fair as first show of blossom on the boughs 
 In May, ere any wind has rudely blown, 
 Or frost untimed has frayed its virgin bloom : 
 And as this phantasm of the past grew dim, 
 And faded from his sight, in hopeless gloom, 
 He forceful dash'd, in fury of his heart, 
 Wild wailing notes upon the echoing air,
 
 02 
 
 ME RUM SYLVESTRIS 
 
 And gathering spirits of the hills, disrnay'd, 
 Fled far at hearing of the wildering sound. 
 
 'Neath the tree's shade, that by the river grew, 
 The warrior bard, with shoulder bearing shield, 
 With sword on thigh, lay calm in vision'd sleep, 
 And, 'mid the swaying of the river's rush 
 At night, his soul was soothed ; beiore him clear 
 Unroll' d was the long course of time to come : 
 And then he dreamt a sweet dream of a child 
 Born in the South, who should appear, fair-faced, 
 Bold as the Sun, when coursing high and strong. 
 And should upraise the Cymry from their fall; 
 And with the morn, amid the pleasant notes 
 Of early birds, beside the gleaming stream 
 That flowed rejoicing in the tide of dawn, 
 He took his harp, and in exulting heart 
 Struck notes prophetic of Cadwallawn's son, 
 And triumph of the Cymry' s ashen spears :
 
 MERLIN SYLVESTRIS 93 
 
 But, as the gloamin' settled on the hill, 
 The notes were turned again to wailing low, 
 O'er vision of a youth, — the Cymric hope, — 
 'Mid wasting pestilence, dead ere his prime. 
 
 Vet not alone in those wild wooded hills 
 
 Was Merlin old, for haunted was he aye 
 
 By mystic female form, — fair Chwifleian, — 
 
 Who on him gleam'd in glints of sun through mist, 
 
 Then pass'd from view in silent closing wreaths 
 
 Of soft hill haur that slowly darken'd o'er 
 
 The sky; and she would often secret lurk 
 
 In shadows of the birks, and shine in moonbeam 
 
 Upon his fountain clear; seeking to enclose 
 
 In Polmood's lonely crag the helpless bard. 
 
 Where mortal ear would ne'er list piteous cry. 
 
 But shuddering flee it as an evil wail ; 
 
 And there to hold him in consentless love, 
 
 And come and go whene'er it pleased her.
 
 9 4 MERLIN S YL I r ES TA'/S 
 
 But Meldred's shepherds broke her purpose keen, 
 
 And savage slew the weird and wise old man. 
 
 And yet they say 'twas but the empty form 
 
 That fell beneath the blows of brutal men, 
 
 And that in the sad hour of his dire fate, 
 
 The haunting spirit, getting now the power 
 
 Which she had long'd for, caught the man's true self. 
 
 Laid him in bonds of deep enchanted sleep, 
 
 In Eildon's halls with Arthur and his knights; 
 
 Thence only to awake when ages long 
 
 Are gone, and when one, feeling full the heart's 
 
 Spontaneous impulse, pure and strong to dare 
 
 Oppressive shapes of hideous ill aye quick 
 
 To snatch advantage of the faltering will, 
 
 Shall fearless draw the sword, then sound the horn, 
 
 Amid the darken'd caverns of the hill, 
 
 Despite the murmurs of the gathering sprites, 
 
 And malisons that fill the muttering air, — 
 
 Bold summons back'd by valiant will and deed ; —
 
 MERLIN S YL VESTRIS 9 5 
 
 Then Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights shall rise, 
 In Eildon's halls, to life and energy, 
 Feeling once more the spirit of their time, 
 As morn's reviving breath on misty night, 
 And with the new-born day in heart rejoice. 
 
 Oh : may they come, all cloth'd in dawning fresh 
 Of the world's fair youth, and bring us back again 
 To harmony of feeling, word, and deed, 
 Ideals high, and stirrings of the soul, 
 That quicken noble work in lives of men, 
 Unconscious all of self, save as it lives 
 Sublimed in power abiding and divine 
 Of simple heart and noble faculty.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 PAGE I. 
 
 77/6' Grey Stone on Dollar Law. 
 
 This solitary stone stands as described, on the 
 north-west slope of the Dollar Law (2680 feet). The 
 name is fancifully thought to mean the Hill of Grief. 
 The Dollar Law is the eastmost of the crescent ridge 
 of massive mountains — vast, wild, and solitary — that 
 separate the valley of the Tweed from that of the 
 Meggat Water, which flows into St. Mary's Loch. 
 The Grey Stone is one of the oldest monuments in 
 the district. Within these last three years, some 
 one in quest of geological knowledge, with a scien- 
 tific soul unsoftened by the genius of the place, 
 struck the face of the stone with his excellent ham- 
 mer, and splintered it to the extent of eighteen 
 inches. 
 
 G
 
 98 .VOTES. 
 
 PAGE I, LINE 4. 
 
 Benty. 
 
 Bent is a particular kind of hill grass, familiar to 
 all who know the southern uplands. It is constantly 
 referred to in the old ballads as " the Lent sae 
 brown." Brown it may be in late Autumn ; in July 
 it is finely sunny, and graceful as wavy golden hair. 
 Hence, perhaps, the name of Common Hair Grass. 
 
 page 3, line 6. 
 Merlin. See below Merlin Sylvestris, page 82, line 1. 
 
 PAGE 4, LINE 14. 
 
 Hot Trod. 
 
 The " Hot Trod " was the phrase which indicated 
 the mode of pursuit of a Border marauder who was 
 driving off cattle not his own under shelter of night. 
 It was carried on as here described; and we can 
 quite understand the eagerness and the pieturesque- 
 ness of the pursuit and flight, — up the glen and over 
 the hills. Hot it must have been for pursued and 
 pursuer.
 
 NOTES. 99 
 
 PAGE 5, LINE 2. 
 
 Hope. 
 
 Hope, or Houp, is a "sloping hollow between two 
 hills, or the hollow that is formed between two ridges 
 on one hill " — (Jamieson ). This is the application of 
 the word in the southern uplands of Scotland; but 
 generally, if not universally, it there designates a 
 hollow of the kind described, in which flows a burn, 
 and a burn as opposed to a larger stream, or water. 
 The valley through which a water flows is usually 
 named z.glen. At the head of a Hope, too, the hills 
 meet from the opposite sides, and sweep, generally in 
 a curve or crescent form, round the grain or burn head. 
 Otherwise, the opening is called a Glack (Pass). The 
 original idea of Hope is probably enclosure, or en- 
 closed shelter; as in the hollow between hills. This 
 is confirmed by the use of the word in Lothian and 
 Fife for haven, — as St. Margaret's Hope. The run- 
 lets, or burns, towards the head of a Hope, are called 
 Grains, or Granes, because there the main stream 
 divides, or branches out, into several arms or feeders. 
 Grain, according to Jamieson, is literally division, or 
 branch, — from South German gren-a; Islandic, grein-a, 
 dividere; grein, distinctio.
 
 too NOTES. 
 
 PAGE 5, LINE II. 
 
 Sough. 
 
 Sough, souch, — " a rushing or whistling sound." 
 Anglo-Saxon, sweg, swege (Jamicson). As applied to 
 a burn or stream, sough indicates a fitful rush, or 
 rise and fall, of water, — a swaying sound familiar to 
 every one who has listened to the course of a burn 
 in a glen on a quiet night. 
 
 page 9, LINE 12. 
 
 Hicht. 
 
 Hicht, a height or high hill. Hichts, in the plural, 
 is applied to a range of high and generally massive 
 hills, as the " Hundleshope Hichts." 
 
 page io, line i. 
 
 sua. 
 
 Stat, " an enclosure for cattle, higher than a com- 
 mon fold" (JamiesoJi). The stell, in sheep districts, 
 is a square or circular dyke (dry stone wall), the area 
 ot which is planted with trees, — generally Scotch firs. 
 Its use is to afford shelter to sheep in a snow-storm.
 
 NOTES. IOI 
 
 Originally it probably meant what is placed or set up, 
 — from stcllcn, to place, or set, — hence, covert, enclosure; 
 and then it came to denote the particular kind of 
 enclosure used for sheep or cattle. 
 
 PAGE 12, LINE I. 
 
 Try stin'. 
 
 Tryst, "an appointment to meet,"— analogous to 
 traist, trust. 
 
 PAGE 13, LINE I. 
 
 Yirded. 
 
 Yird, to cover with earth, or conceal in the earth ; 
 to bury, — from yird, earth. " The cauld yird " is 
 " the cauld grave." Same as yerd, crd, erde, ycrth. 
 
 PAGE 14, LINE 2. 
 
 Moorburn. 
 
 Properly Muir-burn, or Mure-burn, — burning of the 
 older growth of heath or heather on the moors or 
 hills, which usually takes place in March.
 
 102 NOTES. 
 
 PAGE 1 6. 
 
 The Weird of Dawyck. 
 
 Dawyck, an ancient estate on the Tweed, was 
 held for nearly five hundred years by a family of the 
 name of Le Vache, — Vache, latterly Veitch. William 
 le Vache signed the Ragman Roll at the Castle of 
 Peebles, in 1296. There were several men of note 
 of this family, to whom reference is made in the text. 
 Sir John Veitch, the second last of the line who held 
 Dawyck, and who is represented as seeing the vision, 
 was Master of Works in Scotland under Charles I., 
 and for a long period a prominent member of the 
 Scotch Parliament. He disinterestedly spent the 
 greater part of his fortune on the repair of public 
 buildings in Scotland, particularly Holyrood, and died 
 an impoverished man, without receiving arrears of 
 salary, recompence, or gratitude. His son had to 
 part with the estate, owing to encumbrances thus 
 contracted, towards the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 page 28, line 6. 
 
 The Bowed Dwarf. 
 
 Bowed — i.e., bent, or crooked, was an epithet of 
 David Ritchie, the original of Scott's "Black Dwarf."
 
 NOT&S. 103 
 
 His cottage is in the vale of Manor, and there he 
 spent the greater part of his eccentric life. Unfor- 
 tunately the exterior of the dwelling has been mo- 
 dernized, and an addition made to it in the form of an 
 adjoining cottage. The garden, however, and the 
 garden wall, — of rough and ponderous stones, put 
 into position almost entirely by his own strength of 
 arm, — remain very much as they were in the time 
 of the dwarf himself. For some details regarding 
 his life and character, see the Introduction to the 
 Black Dwarf (1826). 
 
 PAGE 35. 
 
 Margaret Tweedie of Drummelzier. 
 
 The estate and castle of Drummelzier — for long 
 the possession of the ancient family of Tweedie— 
 passed into the hands of a kinsman, Lord Yester, 
 afterwards first Earl of Tweeddale, about the year 
 1618. William Hay, Lord Yester's second son, be- 
 came the new laird ; and the tradition is, that when 
 visiting the old tower, with a view to take possession, 
 his heart was touched with pity for the last daughter 
 of the line, whom he made his wife.
 
 104 NOTES. 
 
 PAGE 43. 
 
 A Midnight Raid. 
 
 Written August 21, 1867, on the occasion of Her 
 Majesty's visit to the Duke of Roxburghe, at Floors 
 Castle. 
 
 page 47. 
 
 Young Hay of Talla. 
 
 Talla, probably the Tal Ardd of the Avallcnau of 
 Merlin, is, especially in its longest reach, where it 
 branches upwards to Gameshope Loch, one of the 
 wildest, most solitary, and most impressive of the 
 south country glens. Hay, the heir of Talla in 
 Queen Mary's time, was the person who, along with 
 Hepburn of Bolton, strangled Darnley, on Sunday 
 evening, 9th February, 1567, either in the house of 
 Kirk o' Field, or outside of it, as he was endeavour- 
 ing to escape from his murderers. Darnley's body 
 was found on the other side of a wall, opposite 
 the chamber in which he had been lying. The 
 house was blown up by gunpowder, evidently after 
 the king had been put to death. Young Hay was, 
 no doubt, a relation of the Yester or Tweeddale 
 family, whose principal seat was at that time Neidpath
 
 iVOTES. 
 
 io 5 
 
 Castle, on the Tweed. Talla was executed for his 
 part in Parnley's murder, along with his accomplice 
 Bolton, on the 3rd January, 156S. See Burton's 
 History of Scotland, IV. 343, V. 93. 
 
 page 73, lixe 2. 
 
 For nothing loath they were, if hot pursued. 
 To curse the bright blinks of the sacred moon. 
 
 " As Archie passed the Brockwood leys, 
 He cursed the blinkan moon, 
 For shouts were borne upo' the breeze 
 Frae a' the hills aboon." 
 
 — Archie Armstrongs Aith {Minstrelsy^ III. 48 1). 
 
 page 73, line 6. 
 
 Weather-gleam. 
 
 Weather-gleam, or Weddir glim, is the clear sky 
 near the horizon, which appears in the twilight or 
 dusk. Anglo-Saxon, weder, heaven; and gleam, 
 splendour. The weather-gleam appears most mark- 
 edly in a district where the flowing hill-lines run 
 for a long distance along the horizon. It there looks 
 like a belt or ribbon-line of pale light, between the
 
 ic6 NOTES. 
 
 dark sky above and the dark hills below. An object 
 or person may thus be seen against it at a great 
 distance ; and then looms before the eye in a very 
 impressive manner. The time of night the indis- 
 tinctness with which the object is seen, the sharp 
 contrast of light and darkness, are well fitted to give 
 rise to vague suggestions, and feelings of awe in the 
 mind of a solitary traveller on the hills. 
 
 page 73, line 15. 
 
 Tlierc monarch stern, with purpose keen and hard, 
 Rode regally to Cockbuni s lonely tower. 
 
 The tradition is, that James V., in 1529, passed by 
 this old Border road, commonly called The Thieves' 
 Road, to Henderland tower, — the residence of Piers 
 Cockburn, — and there hanged him as a freebooter, 
 over the gateway of his own tower. That simple, 
 touching, and passionate wail, The Lament of the 
 Border Widow, is said to refer to this incident. — See 
 Scott's Minstrelsy, II. 322 (ed. 181 2). 
 
 PAGE 74, LINE 7. 
 
 And, full of simple vision, there they saw, 
 In Kirk and Quire, the brier and red rose.
 
 VOTES. 
 
 The reference is to the Doug/as Tragedy :- 
 
 " Lord William was buried in St. Marie'-, 
 Lady Margaret in Marie's Kirk Quire ; 
 Out o' the Lady's grave grew a bonnie red rose, 
 And out o' the Knight's a brier." 
 
 -Minstrelsy \ II., 224. 
 
 PAGE 74, LINE 16. 
 
 And some in that quaint time perchance had been 
 Around the oaken bier, with silver iiu'd. 
 
 See the Ballad of The Gay Goss Hawk {Min- 
 strelsy, II. 377). 
 
 '• She brightened like the lily flower, 
 Till her pale colour was goiu- ; 
 With rosy cheik and ruby lip, 
 She smil'd her love upon." 
 
 PAGE 75, LINE 10. 
 Wizard Biuram old. 
 
 The wizard's grave ; 
 That wizard priest's, whose bones are thrust 
 From company of holy dust." 
 
 —Marmion ; Introduction to Canto Second. See 
 also Hogg's Ballad of Mess John.
 
 io8 XOTES. 
 
 PAGE 76, LINE I. 
 
 And they who went by that dim bridle track, 
 And worship fd ardent in the old lone kirk, 
 Had other faith than that they learnt from priest. 
 
 The classic Fairy Ballad of the Minstrelsy is The 
 Young- Tamlane, to which the author is indebted for 
 several phrases, and suggestions of features in the 
 character of the Fairies as here depicted. Janet's 
 heroic and successful attempt to rescue her lover from 
 fairy spell is sung with wonderful simplicity and natu- 
 ral power : — 
 
 " Gloomy, gloomy was the night, 
 And eerie was the way, 
 As fair Janet, in her green mantle, 
 To Miles' Cross she did gae. 
 
 " The heavens were black, the night was dark, 
 And dreary was the place ; 
 But Janet stood, with eager wish, 
 Her lover to embrace. 
 
 " Betwixt the hours of twelve and one 
 A north wind tore the bent ; 
 And straight she heard strange elritch sounds 
 Upon that wind which went. 
 
 ' ' About the dead hour of the night 
 She heard the bridles ring ; 
 And Janet was as glad of that 
 As any earthly thing !
 
 NOTES. I09 
 
 " Their oaten pipes blew wondrous shrill, 
 
 The hemlock small blew clear ; 
 And louder notes from hemlock large, 
 
 And bog-reed struck the ear ; 
 But solemn sounds, or sober thoughts, 
 
 The Fairies cannot bear. 
 
 " Fair Janet stood, with mind unmov'd, 
 The dreary heath upon ; 
 And louder, louder wax'd the sound, 
 As they came riding on. 
 
 " Will o' Wisp before them went ; 
 Sent forth a twinkling light ; 
 And soon she saw the Fairy band, 
 All riding in her sight. 
 
 " And first gaed by the black, black steed, 
 And then gaed by the brown ; 
 And fast she gript the milk-white steed, 
 And pu'd the rider down. 
 
 " She pu'd him frae the milk-white steed, 
 And loot the bridle fa' ; 
 And up there raise an erlish cry, 
 ' He's won among us a' ! ' " 
 
 -Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II. 201. 
 
 TAGE 82, LINE I. 
 
 Merlin Sylvestris. 
 
 The name of Merlin, poet, seer, and wizard, is a 
 familiar one in die upper part of the Valley of the
 
 no .VOTES. 
 
 Tweed. He is said to have wandered during the latter 
 part of his life, among the wilds of Drummelzier and 
 Tweedsmuir, then covered with birch and hazel, and 
 the centre of the Coed Celyddon, or Wood of Caledon, 
 Nemus Caledonis. He met his death, according to 
 tradition, at the hands of the shepherds of Mel- 
 dred, a regulus or princeling of the district. Merlin 
 is a somewhat shadowy historical figure, but there 
 can be no doubt that at least one person of this 
 name lived somewhere about the middle of the sixth 
 century; and that he died by the Tweed in the 
 district of Drummelzier, which then formed nearly 
 the centre of the Cymric, or British, kingdom of 
 Cumbria. The great and apparently decisive battle 
 of Arderydd between the Christianised and Pagan 
 or Semi-pagan Celts took place in the year 573. 
 Arderydd is supposed to be Arthuret, near Carlisle. 
 Merlin was on the Pagan and losing side, and his 
 master Gwendollew, and his own nephew, — his sister 
 Gwendydd's son, — both fell in the combat. After 
 this defeat, Merlin, in a state of frenzy, fled to the 
 wilds of upper Tweeddale, where he is said to have 
 lived for fifty years. There is every probability that 
 the Tweeddale Merlin, the son of Morvryn, called 
 also Merlin Wylt, Merlin Sylvestris, Merlin Caledonius, 
 was the famous Welsh or Cymric poet of the sixth 
 century. Two poems of Merlin, in Welsh Merddyn,
 
 NOTES. i i | 
 
 relating to the battle of Arderydd, are to be found in 
 the ancient and famous Black Book of Carmarthen 
 (Nos. I. and XVI.). The first is a wail for the loss of 
 the battle. The other is the oldest existing form of 
 the poem, called the Avallcnau, attributed to Merlin. 
 In this we have some curious glimpses of the bard. 
 We have, besides, the hints out of which sprung 
 subsequent mediaeval traditions regarding him, and 
 suggestions of those mythic features ascribed to him 
 in the romances of Brittany. The Avallenau is a 
 series of predictions regarding Cymric history. Seated 
 at the base of an apple-tree at Tal Ardd. in the 
 Wood of Caledon, he sings : — 
 
 " Sweet apple-tree, and a tree cf crimson hue, 
 
 Which grows in concealment in the wood of Celyddon ; 
 Though sought for their fruit, it will be in vain, 
 Until Cadwaladyr comes from the conference of Cadvaon. 
 To the Eagle of Tywi (Teviot) and Teiwi (Tweed) rivers; 
 And until fierce anguish comes from Aranwynion, 
 And the wild and long-haired ones are made tame." 
 
 —Skene's Four Ancient Books of Waies, I. 373. 
 
 Merlin's friend and master, Taliessin thus refers to 
 him : — 
 
 " And a load that the moon separates, 
 The placid gentleness of Merlin." 
 
 Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, 1 1. 534.
 
 II2 NOTES. 
 
 In Merlin Sylvestris an attempt has been made to 
 depict the Merlin of these early poems, and of local 
 tradition, which may be traced back for many hun- 
 dreds of years, near, indeed, to his historical time. 
 In the twelfth century (115c) appeared a Life of 
 Merlin in Latin verse (Vita Merlini Caledonii), 
 attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth. By this time 
 the mythic element had grown, in great measure, 
 around the historical character. Geoffrey refers par- 
 ticularly to the fountain which Merlin frequented, in 
 these words : — 
 
 " Fons erat in summo cujusdam vertice montis, 
 Undique prrecinctus corulis densisque frutetis, 
 Illic Merlinus consederat ; inde per omnes 
 Spectabat sylvas, cursusque, jocosque ferarum." 
 
 A spring that wells up amid most beautiful grass and 
 moss, on the south-west slope of a spur of the great 
 Broadlaw, where it overlooks the depths of Talla 
 and the head of Meggat water, — the only fountain on 
 these wide, bare, solitary uplands, — may well be taken 
 as the "fons in summo vertice montis," where the seer- 
 poet sat and soothed his restless spirit, dissatisfied 
 with the present, and looking longingly into the far 
 future. 
 
 In the Scotichronicon of Fordun (L. III., C. 31), 
 there is an account of the meeting between Merlin —
 
 XOTES. ii- 
 
 who belonged, at least in part, to the old Pagan wor- 
 ship — and Kentigern, the first apostle on Tweedside 
 of the Christian creed. Merlin is represented, in 
 accordance with later views, as a Christian, doomed to 
 penance in the wilds. He is described as follows : — 
 " Quidam demens, nudus et hirsutus, ab omni solatio 
 mundiali destitutus, quasi quoddam torvum furiale." 
 In reply to Kentigern, he says, — " Ohm Vortigerni 
 vates, Merlinus vocitatus, in hac solitudine dira 
 patiens fata. . . . Eram enim casdis omnium causa 
 interemptorum, qui interfecti sunt in bello, cunctis in 
 hac patria constitutis satis noto, quod erat in campo 
 inter Lidel et Carvanolow situate" For Vortigern I 
 have ventured to substitute Gwendollew. 
 
 page 5, line 14. 
 
 Thus one day wandering with his Nimianc. 
 
 "Thei (Merlin and Nimiane) sojourned together 
 longe time, till it fill on a day that thei went thourgh 
 the foreste hande in hande, devisinge and disportinge, 
 and this was in the foreste of Brochelonde, and fonde 
 a bussh that was feire and high of white hawthorne, 
 full of fioures, and ther thei sat in the shadowe ; 
 and Merlin leide his heed in the damesels lappe, and 
 she began to taste softly till he fill on slepe ; and 
 
 H
 
 ii4 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 when she felt that he was on slepe she aroos softly, 
 and made a cerne (circle) with hir wymple all aboute 
 the bussh and all aboute Merlin, and began hir 
 enchantementes soche as Merlin hadde hir taught, 
 and made the cerne IX tymes, and IX tymes hir en- 
 chantementes ; and after that she wente and satte 
 down by him and leide his heed in hir lappe, and hilde 
 hym ther till he dide awake ; and than he looked 
 aboute hym, and hym semed he was in the feirest tour 
 of the worlde, and the most stronge, and fonde hym 
 leide in the feirest place that ever he lay beforn .... 
 Ne never after com Merlin oute of that fortresse that 
 she hadde hym in sette ; but she wente in and oute 
 whan she wolde." — Merlin, or the Early History of 
 King Arthur, a Prose Romance, Part III., 68 1 (about 
 1450-1460, A.D.), Early English Text Society. 
 
 PAGE 87, LINE 13. 
 
 Shaw. 
 
 Shaw originally denoted a thicket. This was 
 generally formed of birch and hazel — both natural 
 growths of the Southern valleys and hills. Shaw is 
 also used to designate the brow of a hill, when it 
 rises to a point from a broad base. — This, however,
 
 NOTES. , , - 
 
 is a secondary application of the term, and probably 
 arose from this form of hill being usually clothed with 
 indigenous wood. 
 
 PAGE 94, LIKE 7. 
 
 It was the belief of the people of Cumbria after 
 Camelon, where Arthur fell in 537, that he and his 
 knights were not really dead, but only slept in the 
 halls beneath the triple Eildons by the Tweed, wait- 
 ing die bugle-call which should restore them to life 
 and action. A stout heart is needed in him who 
 dares to enter the Eildon caverns, and by trumpet- 
 sound break the wizard spell that holds the heroes of 
 the past in their enchanted sleep. 
 
 " Woe to the coward that ever he was born, 
 Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn. "
 
 Printed by Robert MacLehose.
 
 MR. MACLE HOSE'S PUBLICATIONS. 
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 SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA, 
 
 RErRINTED FOR 
 
 SIR WILLIAM THOMSON, LL.D., 
 
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 HUGH BLACKBUEN, M.A., 
 
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 WITH SIXTEEN PAGE-ILLUSTKATIONS BY J. B. 
 
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