Classic Poem

All day the curlew wailed and screamed,
All day the cushat crooned and dreamed,
All day the sweet muir-wind blew free:
Beyond the grassy knowes far gleamed
The splendour of the singing sea.

Above the myriad gorse and broom
And miles of golden kingcup-bloom
The larks and yellowhammers sang:
Where the scaur cast an hour-long gloom
The lintie's liquid notes out-rang.

Oft as he wandered to and fro—
As idly as the foam-bells flow
Hither and thither on the deep—
Michael the Wizard's face would grow
From death to life, and he would weep—

Weep, weep wild tears of bitter pain
For what might never be again:
Yet even as he wept his face
Would gleam with mockery insane
And with fierce laughter on he'd race.

At times he watched the white clouds sail
Across the wastes of azure pale;
Or oft would haunt some moorland pool
Fringed round with thyme and fragrant gale
And canna-tufts of snow-white wool.

Long in it's depths would Michael stare,
As though some secret thing lay there:
Mayhap the moving water made
A gloom where crouched a Kelpie fair
With death-eyes gleaming through the shade.

Then on with weary listless feet
He fared afar, until the sweet
Cool sound of mountain brooks drew nigh,
And loud he heard the strayed lambs bleat
And the white ewes responsive cry.

High up among the hills full clear
He heard the belting of the deer
Amid the corries where they browsed,
And, where the peaks rose gaunt and sheer,
Fierce swirling echoes eagle-roused.

He watched the kestrel wheel and sweep,
He watched the dun fox glide and creep,
He heard the whaup's long-echoing call,
Watched in the stream the brown trout leap
And the grilse spring the waterfall.

Along the slopes the grouse-cock whirred
The grey-blue heron scarcely stirred
Amid the mossed grey tarn-side stones
The burns gurg-gurgled through the yird
Their sweet clear bubbling undertones.

Above the tarn the dragonfly
Shot like a flashing arrow by
And in a moving shifting haze
The gnat-clouds sank or soared on high
And danced their wild aerial maze.

As the day waned he heard afar
The hawking fern-owl's dissonant jar
Disturb the silence of the hill:
The gloaming came: star after star
He watched the skiey spaces fill.

But as the darkness grew and made
Forest and mountain one vast shade,
Michael the Wizard moaned in dread—
A long white moonbeam like a blade
Swept after him where'er he fled.

Swiftly he leapt o'er rock and root,
Swift o'er the fern his flying foot,
But swifter still the white moonbeam:
Wild was the grey-owl's dismal hoot,
But wilder still his maniac scream.

Once in his flight he paused to hear
A hollow shriek that echoed near:—
The louder were his dreadful cries,
The louder rang adown the sheer
Gaunt cliffs the echoing replies.

As though a hunted wolf, he raced
To the lone woods across the waste
Steep granite slopes of Crammond-Low—
The haunted forest where none faced
The terror that no man might know.

Betwixt the mountains and the sea
Dark leagues of pine stood solemnly,
Voiceful with grim and hollow song,
Save when each tempest-stricken tree
A savage tumult would prolong.

Beneath the dark funereal plumes,
Slow waving to and fro-death-blooms
Within the void dim wood of death—
Oft shuddering at the fearful glooms
Sped Michael Scott with failing breath.

Once, as he passed a dreary place,
Between two trees he saw a face—
A white face staring at his own:
A weird strange cry he gave for grace,
And heard an echoing moan.

“Whate'er ye be, O thing that bides
Among the trees—O thing that hides
In yonder moving mass o' shade
Come forth tae me!”—wan
Michael glides
Swift, as he speaks, athrough the glade:

“Whate'er ye be, I fear ye nought
Michael the Wizard has na fought
Wi' men and demons year by year
To shirk ae thing he has na sought
Or blanch wi' any mortal fear!”

But not a sound thrilled thro' the air—
Not even a she-fox in her lair
Or brooding bird made any stir—
All was as still and blank and bare
As is a vaulted sepulchre.

Then awe, and fear, and wild dismay
O'ercame mad Michael, ashy grey,
With eyes as of one newly dead:
“If wi' my sword I canna slay,
Ye'll dree my weird when it is said!”

“Whate'er ye be, man, beast, or sprite,
I wind ye round wi' a sheet o' light—
Aye, round and round your burning frame
I cast by spell o' wizard might
A fierce undying sheet of flame!”

Swift as he spoke a thing sprang out,
A man-like thing, all hemmed about
With blazing blasting burning fire!
The wind swoop'd wi' a demon-shout
And whirled the red flame higher and higher!

And as, appalled, wan Michael stood
The flying flaughts swift fired the wood,
And even as he shook and stared
The gaunt pines turned the hue of blood
And all the waving branches flared.

Then with wild leaps the accurséd thing
Drew nigh and nigher: with a spring
Michael escaped its fiery clasp,
Although he felt the fierce flame sting
And all the horror of its grasp.

Swift as an arrow far he fled,
But swifter still the flames o'erhead
Rushed o'er the waving sea of pines,
And hollow noises crashed and sped
Like splitting blasts in ruin'd mines.

A burning league—leagues, leagues of fire
Arose behind, and ever higher
The flying semi-circle came:
And aye beyond this dreadful pyre
There leapt a man-like thing in flame.

With awful scream doom'd Michael saw
The flying furnace reach Black-Law:
“Blood, bride, and bier, the auld rune saith
Hell's wind tae me ae nicht sall blaw,
The nicht I ride unto my death!”

“The blood of Stair is round me now:
My bride can laugh to scorn my vow:
My bier, my bier, ah sall it be
Wi' a crown o' fire around my brow
Or deep within the cauld saut sea!”

Like lightning, over Black-Law's slope
Michael fled swift with sudden hope:
What though the forest roared behind—
He yet might gain the cliff and grope
For where the sheep-paths twist and wind.

The air was like a furnace-blast
And all the dome of heaven one vast
Expanse of flame and fiery wings:
To the cliff's edge, ere all be past,
With shriek on shriek lost Michael springs.

But none can hear his bitter call,
None, none can see him sway and fall—
Yea, one there is that shrills his name!
“O God, it is my ain lost saul That I hae girt wi' deathless flame!”

With waving arms and dreadful cries
He cowers beneath those glaring eyes—
But all in vain—in vain—in vain!
His own soul clasps him as its prize
And scorches death upon his brain.

Body and soul together swing
Adown the night until they fling
The hissing sea-spray far and wide:
At morn the fresh sea-wind will bring
A black corpse tossing on the tide.