Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/21

Rh O'er an old battlefield there rushed

A wind, and with a moan

The severed limbs all rustling rose,

Even fellow-bone to bone.

"Lo! there he goes," I heard them cry,

"Like babe in swathing-band,

Who shook the temples of the Lord,

And passed them 'neath his brand.

Cursed be the spot where he was born,

There let the adders dwell,

And from his father's hearthstone hiss:

All hail to thee, Dalzell!"

I saw thee growing like a tree—

Thy green head touched the sky—

But birds far from thy branches built,

The wild deer passed thee by;

No golden dew dropt on thy bough,

Glad summer scorned to grace

Thee with her flowers, nor shepherds wooed

Beside thy dwelling-place:

The axe has come and hewn thee down,

Nor left one shoot to tell

Where all thy stately glory grew:

Adieu, adieu, Dalzell!

An ancient man stands by thy gate,

His head like thine is grey;

Grey with the woes of many years,

Years fourscore and a day.

Five brave and stately sons were his;

Two daughters, sweet and rare;

An old dame, dearer than them all,

And lands both broad and fair:

Two broke their hearts when two were slain,

And three in battle fell —

An old man's curse shall cling to thee:

Adieu, adieu, Dalzell!

And yet I sigh to think of thee,

A warrior tried and true

As ever spurred a steed, when thick

The splintering lances flew.

I saw thee in thy stirrups stand,

And hew thy foes down fast,

When Grierson fled, and Maxwell failed,

And Gordon stood aghast,

And Graeme, saved by thy sword, raged fierce

As one redeemed from hell.

I came to curse thee—and I weep:

So go in peace, Dalzell!

When this wild and unusual rhyme concluded, the