James Hogg.

1770-1835

527   A Boy’s Song

WHERE the pools are bright and deep,
Where the grey trout lies asleep,
Up the river and over the lea,
That’s the way for Billy and me.

Where the blackbird sings the latest,
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
Where the nestlings chirp and flee,
That’s the way for Billy and me.

Where the mowers mow the cleanest,
Where the hay lies thick and greenest,
There to track the homeward bee,
That’s the way for Billy and me.

Where the hazel bank is steepest,
Where the shadow falls the deepest,
Where the clustering nuts fall free,
That’s the way for Billy and me.

Why the boys should drive away
Little sweet maidens from the play,
Or love to banter and fight so well,
That’s the thing I never could tell.

But this I know, I love to play
Through the meadow, among the hay;
Up the water and over the lea,
That’s the way for Billy and me.

528   Kilmeny

BONNIE Kilmeny gaed up the glen;
But it wasna to meet Duneira’s men,
Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see,
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
It was only to hear the yorlin¹ sing,
And pu’ the cress-flower round the spring;
The scarlet hypp and the hindberrye,²
And the nut that hung frae the hazel tree;
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
But lang may her minny³ look o’er the wa’,
And lang may she seek i’ the green-wood shaw;
Lang the laird o’ Duneira blame,
And lang, lang greet⁴ or Kilmeny come hame!

When many a day had come and fled,
When grief grew calm, and hope was dead,
When mass for Kilmeny’s soul had been sung,
When the bedesman had pray’d and the dead bell rung,
Late, late in gloamin’ when all was still,
When the fringe was red on the westlin⁵ hill,
The wood was sere, the moon i’ the wane,
The reek o’ the cot hung over the plain,
Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;⁶
When the ingle low’d⁷ wi’ an eiry leme,⁸
Late, late in the gloamin’ Kilmeny came hame!

‘Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
Lang hae we sought baith holt and den;
By linn,⁹ by ford, and green-wood tree,
Yet you are halesome and fair to see.
Where gat you that joup¹⁰ o’ the lily scheen?
That bonnie snood of the birk sae green?
And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen?
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?’

Kilmeny look’d up with a lovely grace,
But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny’s face;
As still was her look, and as still was her e’e,
As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.
For Kilmeny had been, she knew not where,
And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;
Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,
Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew.
But it seem’d as the harp of the sky had rung,
And the airs of heaven play’d round her tongue,
When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen,
And a lang where sin had never been;

A land of love and a land of light,
Withouten sun, or moon, or night;
Where the river swa’d¹¹ a living stream,
And the light a pure celestial beam;
The land of vision, it would seem,
A still, an everlasting dream.

In you green-wood there is a waik,¹²
And in that waik there is a wene,¹³
And in that wene there is a maike,¹⁴
That neither has flesh, blood, nor bane;
And down in yon green-wood he walks his lane.¹⁵