stream,
Or picking the midstead
For forage--and scream.

VII.

When darkens the gloaming
Oh, scant is their cheer!
All benumb'd is their song in
The hedge they are thronging,
And for shelter still longing,
The mortar[92] they tear;
Ever noisily, noisily
Squealing their care.

VIII.

The running stream's chieftain[93]
Is trailing to land,
So flabby, so grimy,
So sickly, so slimy,--
The spots of his prime he
Has rusted with sand;
Crook-snouted his crest is
That taper'd so grand.

IX.

How mournful in winter
The lowing of kine;
How lean-back'd they shiver,
How draggled their cover,
How their nostrils run over
With drippings of brine,
So scraggy and crining
In the cold frost they pine.

X.

'Tis hallow-mass time, and
To mildness farewell!
Its bristles are low'ring
With darkness; o'erpowering
Are its waters, aye showering
With onset so fell;
Seem the kid and the yearling
As rung their death-knell.

XI.

Every out-lying creature,
How sinew'd soe'er,
Seeks the refuge of shelter;
The race of the antler
They snort and they falter,
A-cold in their lair;
And the fawns they are wasting
Since their kin is afar.

XII.

Such the songs that are saddest
And dreariest of all;
I ever am eerie
In the morning to hear ye!
When foddering, to cheer the
Poor herd in the stall--
While each creature is moaning,
And sickening in thrall.

[90] "Birk-shaw." A few Scotticisms will be found in these versions, at
once to flavour the style, and, it must be admitted, to assist the
rhymes.

[91] Birds.

[92] The sides of the cottages--plastered with mud or mortar, instead of
lime.

[93] Salmon.

DIRGE FOR IAN MACECHAN.

A FRAGMENT.

Mackay was entertained by Macechan, who was a respectable
store-farmer, from his earliest life to his marriage. According to
his reverend biographer,[94] the last lines of the elegy, of which
the following is a translation, were much approved.

I see the wretch of high degree,
Though poverty has struck his race,
Pass with a darkness on his face