Classic Poem

The plank was covered, so last night
I had to leap the flooded burn;
And as I landed in the fern
I scared an owl to startled flight.

Sharp in my ear it screeched; its cry
Sang through my very marrow-bones,
Curdling my heart's blood, as the Stones
Loomed gaunt against the starless sky.

As through my being's black unknown
Caverns that skirl went echoing,
My feet were drawn into the ring
Of huddled shapes of druid-stone:

Victim of some ancestral dread,
My gullet bared to meet the knife,
Hanging upon the edge of life
Over the unseen clutching dead.

Crouched in the core of night, the sheer
Primeval horror of the dark,
I cowered—when at my feet a lark
Rose with a twitter sweet and clear:

And as he sang the song he sings
An hour before the break of day,
The spell snapped, and above the brae
My heart too soared on dewy wings.