Or yellow as the gleam of lowland fields.
And bold hearts in broad bosoms still are there,
Living and dying peacefully; the huts
Abodes are still of high-soul'd poverty;
And underneath their lintels beauty stoops
Her silken-snooded head, when singing goes
The maiden to her father at his work
Among the woods, or joins the scanty line
Of barley-reapers on their narrow ridge,
In some small field among the pastoral braes.
Still fragments dim of ancient poetry
In melancholy music down the glens
Go floating; and from shieling roof'd with boughs,
And turf-wall'd, high up in some lonely place
Where flocks of sheep are nibbling the sweet grass
Of mid-summer, and browsing on the plants
On the cliff mosses a few goats are seen
Among their kids, you hear sweet melodies
Attuned to some traditionary tale,
By young wife sitting all alone, aware
From shadow on the mountain horologe
Of the glad hour that brings her husband home
Before the gloaming, from the far-off moor
Where the black cattle feed; there all alone
She sits and sings, except that on her knees
Sleeps the sweet offspring of their faithful loves."

We love the people too well to praise them--we have had too heartfelt
experience of their virtues. In castle, hall, house, manse, hut, hovel,
shieling--on mountain and moor, we have known, without having to study
their character. It manifests itself in their manners, and in their
whole frame of life. They are now, as they ever were, affectionate,
faithful, and fearless; and far more delightful surely it is to see such
qualities in all their pristine strength--for civilisation has not
weakened, nor ever will weaken them--without that alloy of fierceness
and ferocity which was inseparable from them in the turbulence of feudal
times. They are now indeed a peaceful people; severe as are the
hardships of their condition, they are, in the main, contented with it;
and nothing short of necessity can dissever them from their dear
mountains. We devoutly trust that there need be no more forced
emigration--that henceforth it will be free--at the option of the
adventurous--and that all who will, when the day cometh, may be gathered
to their fathers in the land that gave them birth. Much remains to be
done not only to relieve but enlighten; yet Christian benevolence has
not been forgetful of their wants; schools and churches are aris