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Putting it quite as a duty and urging grave claims to attention,
True to his night had crossed over: there goeth he, hrimfull of music,
Like to cork tossed by the eddies that foam under furious lasher,
Like to skiff lifted, uplifted, in lock by the swift-swelling sluices,
So with the music possessing him, swaying him, goeth he, look you,
Swinging and flinging,and stamping and tramping, and grasping and clasping
Whom but gay Janet?——Him rivalling Hobbes, briefest-kilted of heroes
Enters, O stoutest, O rashest of creatures, mere fool of a Saxon,
Skill-less of philabeg, skill-less of reel too,—the whirl and the twirl o't:
Him see I frisking, and whisking, and ever at swifter gyration
Under brief curtain revealing broad acres—not of broad cloth.
Him see I there and the Piper—the Piper what vision beholds not?
Him and his Honour and Arthur, with Janet our Piper, and is it,
Is it, O marvel of marvels! he too in the maze of the may,
Skipping, and tripping, tho' stately, tho' languid, with head on one shoulder,
Airlie, with sight of the waistcoat the golden-haired Katie consoling?
Katie, who simple and comely, and smiling, and blushing as ever,
What though she wear on that neck a blue kerchief remembered as Philip's,
Seems in her maidenly freedom to need small consolement of waistcoats!—
Wherefore in Badenoch then, far-away, in Lochaber, Lochiel, in
Knoydart, Croydart, Moydart, Morrer, or Ardnamurchan,
Wanders o'er mountain and moorland, in shieling or bothie is sleeping,
He, who,—and why should he not then? capricious? or is it rejected?
Might to the piping of Rannoch be pressing the thrilling fair fingers,
Might, as he clasped her, transmit to her bosom the throb of his own,—yea,—
Might in the joy of the reel be wooing and winning his Katie?
What is it Adam reads far off by himself in the Cottage?
Reads yet again with emotion, again is preparing to answer?
Answered before too it had been at once, on the spur of the moment,
Answered, but oft reconsidered, and after-thought needs will be spoken,
What is it Adam is reading? What was it, Philip had written?
There was it writ, how Philip possessed undoubtedly had been,
Deeply, entirely possessed by the charm of the maiden of Rannoch;
Deeply as never before! how sweet and bewitching he felt her
Seen still before him at work, in the garden, the byre, the kitchen;
How it was beautiful to him to stoop at her side in the shearing,
Binding uncouthly the ears, that fell from her dexterous sickle,
Building uncouthly the stooks,[1] which she laid-by her sickle to straighten;
How at the dance he had broken through shyness; for four days after
- ↑ Shocks.
