I see the widow in her tears,
Dark as her woe—I
see her boy—
From both, want
reaves the dregs of joy;
The flash of youth through
rags appears.
I see the poor’s—the
minstrel’s lot—
As brethren they—no
boon for song!
I see the unrequited
wrong
Call for its helper, who is
not.
You hear my plaint, and ask
me, why?
You ask me when
this deep distress
Began to rage
without redress?
“With Ian Macechan’s
dying sigh!”
[94] “Poems,” p. 318.
THE SONG OF THE FORSAKEN DROVER.
During a long absence on a droving expedition, Mackay was deprived of his mistress by another lover, whom, in fine, she married. The discovery he made, on his return, led to this composition; which is a sequel to another composed on his distant journey, in which he seems to prognosticate something like what happened. Both are selected by Sir Walter Scott as specimens of the bard, and may be found paraphrastically rendered in a prose version, in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlv., p. 371, and in the notes to the last edition of “The Highland Drover,” in “Chronicles of the Canongate.” With regard to the present specimen, it may be remarked, that part of the original is either so obscure, or so freely rendered by Sir Walter Scott’s translator, that we have attempted the present version, not without some little perplexity as to the sense of one or two allusions. We claim, on the whole, the merit of almost literal fidelity.
I.
I fly from the fold, since
my passion’s despair
No longer must harbour the
charms that are there;
Anne’s[95] slender eyebrows,
her sleek tresses so long,
Her turreted bosom—and
Isabel’s[96] song;
What
has been, and is not—woe ’s my thought!
It
must not be spoken, nor can be forgot.
II.
I wander’d the fold,
and I rambled the grove,
And each spot it reported
the kiss of my love;
But I saw her caressing another—and
feel
’Tis distraction to
hear them, and see them so leal.
What
has been, and is not, &c.
III.
Since ’twas told that
a rival beguil’d thee away,
The dreams of my love are
the dreams of dismay;
Though unsummon’d of
thee,[97] love has captured thy thrall,
And my hope of redemption
for ever is small.
Day
and night, though I strive aye
To
shake him away, still he clings like the ivy.
IV.
But, auburn-hair’d Anna!
to tell thee my plight,
’Tis old love unrequited
that prostrates my might,
In presence or absence, aye
faithful, my smart
Still racks, and still searches,
and tugs at my heart—
Broken
that heart, yet why disappear
From
my country, without one embrace from my dear?