Woe is the sign! 
It is not well
With the lads that dwell
Around us, so brave,
When the mistress fine
Of Riothan-a-dave
Is out with the kine,
And with her is none. 
O, woe is the sign, &c.

Whoever he be
That a bride would gain
Of gentle degree,
And a drove or twain,
His speed let him strain
To Riothan-a-dave,
And a bride he shall have. 
Then, to her so fain! 
Whoever he be, &c.

And a bride he shall have,
The maid that’s alone. 
Isabel Mackay, &c. 
Oh, seest not the dearie
So fit for embracing,
Her patience distressing,
The bestial a-chasing,
And she alone!

’Tis a marvellous fashion
That men should be slack,
When their bosoms lack
An object of passion,
To look such a lass on,
Her patience distressing,
The bestial a-chasing,
In the field, alone.

CRUNLUATH (FINALE).

Oh, look upon the prize, sirs,
That where yon heights are rising,
The whole long twelvemonth sighs in,
Because she is alone. 
Go, learn it from my minstrelsy,
Who list the tale to carry,
The maiden shuns the public eye,
And is ordain’d to tarry
’Mid stoups and cans, and milking ware,
Where brown hills rear their ridges bare,
And wails her plight the livelong year,
To spend the day alone.

[100] A common Highland adjuration.

EVAN’S ELEGY.

Mackay was benighted on a deer-stalking expedition, near a wild hut or shealing, at the head of Loch Eriboll.  Here he found its only inmate a poor asthmatic old man, stretched on his pallet, apparently at the point of death.  As he sat by his bed-side, he “crooned,” so as to be audible, it seems, to the patient, the following elegiac ditty, in which, it will be observed, he alludes to the death, then recent, of Pelham, an eminent statesman of George the Second’s reign.  As he was finishing his ditty, the old man’s feelings were moved in a way which will be found in the appended note.  This is one of Sir Walter Scott’s extracts in the Quarterly, and is now attempted in the measure of the original.

    How often, Death! art waking
      The imploring cry of Nature! 
    When she sees her phalanx breaking,
      As thou’dst have all—­grim feature! 
    Since Autumn’s leaves to brownness,
      Of deeper shade were tending,
    We saw thy step, from palaces,
      To Evan’s nook descending. 
        Oh, long, long thine agony! 
          A nameless length its tide;
        Since breathless thou hast panted here,
          And not a friend beside. 
        Thine errors what, I judge not;
          What righteous deeds undone;
        But if remains a se’ennight,
          Redeem it, dying one!