VI.

      The sun is in hiding,
        Or frozen its beam
    On the peaks where he lingers,
    On the glens, where the singers,[91]
    With their bills and small fingers
        Are raking the 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
    That door of hospitality.