ALL Scottish legends did his fancy fashion, All airs that richly flow, Laughing with frolic, tremulous with passion, Broken with love-lorn woe; Ballads whose beauties years have long been stealing And left few links of gold, Under his quaint and subtle touch of healing Grew fairer, not less old. Grey Cluden, and the vestal's choral cadence, His spell awoke therewith; Till boatmen hung their oars to hear the maidens Upon the banks of Nith. His, too, the strains of battle nobly coming From Bruce, or Wallace wight, Such as the Highlander shall oft be humming Before some famous fight. Nor only these -- for him the hawthorn hoary Was with new wreaths enwrought, The 'crimson-tipped daisy' wore fresh glory, Born of poetic thought. From the 'wee cow'ring beastie' he could borrow A moral strain sublime, A noble tenderness of human sorrow, In wondrous wealth of rhyme. Oh, but the mountain breeze must have been pleasant Upon the sunburnt brow Of that poetic and triumphant peasant Driving his laurell'd plough! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WHITE WOMEN by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE THE SNUG LITTLE ISLAND by THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN A PRAYER IN SPRING by ROBERT FROST ROAD AND HILLS by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET THE END OF THE SUNSET TRAIL by ALMA C. BINGHAM WINTER NIGHTS; A BACKWARD LOOK by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |