Page:Poetical works of Mathilde Blind.djvu/54

28 after a second visit to Scotland in 1883. It gives voice to the general indignation against the reckless clearance of Highland estates, and a highly finished execution would have been out of place. It is not too much to affirm that no other English poetess since Mrs. Browning could have given utterance with equal energy to the compassion and indignation called forth by such circumstances. The poem achieved considerable popularity, especially in the Highlands.

Extracts from letters to the writer may show how Highland scenery impressed the poetess:—

". "A bare-looking stone farmhouse, endless reaches of short, spare grass, and the waters of Loch Snizort winding in and out between two sterile rocks—this is the whole scene. You may add to it to-day a grey sky, a faint mist, the plaintive cry of the curlew heard now and then, or the low of a cow breaking a silence so deep that it seems almost to become audible.

"About two miles from here you get a very fine view, and that too of a unique character. Looking down black precipitous rocks you come in sight of the pretty little bay' of Uig with a few houses (great rarities here), and a little kirk, sprinkled along the shore. Beyond that is a glassy sea, in which the island of Harris, with its clear-cut aerial hills, rests like an exhalation a breath of wind might dissolve. The sea-girt Hebrides have an oceanic softness of colour, a delicate purity of outline, an evanescent bloom which partakes more of the appearance of some still Avilion than of our common and substantial earth."

", September 25th.

"I was storm-stayed for nearly three days at a lonely