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?