--
The fate of thy sire,
Awaiting thy coming,
Consumed thee like fire.

O Son of The Red,
Undone and laid dead--
The blood of a hero
My cold blade hath shed.

THE BLUE MEN OF THE MINCH.

When the tide is at the turning and the wind is fast asleep,
And not a wave is curling on the wide, blue Deep,
O the waters will be churning on the stream that never smiles,
Where the Blue Men are splashing round the charmed isles.

As the summer wind goes droning o'er the sun-bright seas,
And the Minch is all a-dazzle to the Hebrides;
They will skim along like salmon--you can see their shoulders gleam,
And the flashing of their fingers in the Blue Men's Stream.

But when the blast is raving and the wild tide races,
The Blue Men ere breast-high with foam-grey faces;
They'll plunge along with fury while they sweep the spray behind,
O, they'll bellow o'er the billows and wail upon the wind.

And if my boat be storm-toss'd and beating for the bay,
They'll be howling and be growling as they drench it with their spray--
For they'd like to heel it over to their laughter when it lists,
Or crack the keel between them, or stave it with their fists.

O weary on the Blue Men, their anger and their wiles!
The whole day long, the whole night long, they're splashing round the isles;
They'll follow every fisher--ah! they'll haunt the fisher's dream--
When billows toss, O who would cross the Blue Men's Stream?

THE URISK.

O the night I met the Urisk on the wide, lone moor!
Ah! would I be forgetting of The Thing that came with me?
For it was big and black as black, and it was dour as dour,
It shrank and grew and had no shape of aught I e'er did see.

For it came creeping like a cloud that's moving all alone,
Without the sound of footsteps ... and I heard its heavy sighs ...
Its face was old and grey, and like a lichen-covered stone,
And its tangled locks were dropping o'er its sad and weary eyes.

O it's never the word it had to say in anger or in woe--
It would not seek to harm me that had never done it wrong,
As fleet--O like the deer!--I went, or I went panting slow,
The waesome thing came with me on that lonely road and long.

O eerie was the Urisk that convoy'd me o'er the moor!
When I was all so helpless and my heart was full of fear,
Nor when it was beside me or behind me was I sure--
I knew it would be following--I knew it would be near!

THE NIMBLE MEN.

(AURORA BOREALIS.)

When Angus O