Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/636

 JAMES HOGG

And she heard a song, she heard it sung,

She kenn'd not where; but sae sweetly it rung,

It fell on the ear like a dream of the morn.

'O, blest be the day Kilmeny was born'

Now shall the land of the spirits see,

Now shall it ken what a woman may be'

The sun that shines on the world sac bright,

A borrowed gleid frae the fountain of light;

And the moon that sleeks the sky sae dun,

Like a gouden bow, or a beamless sun,

Shall wear away, and be seen nae mair,

And the angels shall miss them travelling the air.

I3ut lang, lang after baith night and day,

When the sun and the world have clyed away,

When the sinner has gane to his waesome doom,

Kilmeny shall smile in eternal bloom'*

They bore her away, she wist not how,

For she felt not arm nor rest below;

But so swift they wain'd her through the light,

'Twas like the motion of sound or bight;

They seem'd to split the gales of air,

And yet nor gale nor breeze was there.

Unnumber'd groves below them grew,

They came, they pass'd, and backward flew,

Like floods of blossoms gliding on,

In moment seen, in moment gone.

O, never vales to mortal view

Appeared like those o'er which they flew!

That land to human spirits given,

The lowermost vales of the storied heaven;

gleid] spark, glow. elyed] vanished.

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