XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]. Lang Andrew

      Prince, ere the dark be shred

      By golden shafts, ere low

      And long the shadows creep:

      Lord of the wand of lead,

      Soft-footed as the snow,

      Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep!

      Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old,

      Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree;

      The west wind breathes upon them, pure and cold,

      And wolves still dread Diana roaming free

      In secret woodland with her company.

      ’Tis thought the peasants’ hovels know her rite

      When now the wolds are bathed in silver light,

      And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey,

      Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright,

      And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.

      With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold

      The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee,

      Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold

      Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,

      The wild red dwarf, the nixies’ enemy;

      Then ’mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright,

      The sudden Goddess enters, tall and white,

      With one long sigh for summers pass’d away;

      The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright

      And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.

      She gleans her silvan trophies; down the wold

      She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee

      Mixed with the music of the hunting roll’d,

      But her delight is all in archery,

      And naught of ruth and pity wotteth she

      More than her hounds that follow on the flight;

      The goddess draws a golden bow of might

      And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay.

      She tosses loose her locks upon the night,

      And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.

      Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite,

      The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight:

      Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray

      There is the mystic home of our delight,

      And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.

      The ferox rins in rough Loch Awe,

      A weary cry frae ony toun;

      The Spey, that loups o’er linn and fa’,

      They praise a’ ither streams aboon;

      They boast their braes o’ bonny Doon:

      Gie me to hear the ringing reel,

      Where shilfas sing, and cushats croon

      By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!

      There’s Ettrick, Meggat, Ail, and a’,

      Where trout swim thick in May and June;

      Ye’ll see them take in showers o’ snaw

      Some blinking, cauldrife April noon:

      Rax ower the palmer and march-broun,

      And syne we’ll show a bonny creel,

      In spring or simmer, late or soon,

      By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!

      There’s mony a water, great or sma’,

      Gaes singing in his siller tune,

      Through glen and heugh, and hope and shaw,

      Beneath the sun-licht or the moon:

      But set us in our fishing-shoon

      Between the Caddon-burn and Peel,

      And syne we’ll cross the heather broun

      By fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel!

      Deil take the dirty, trading loon

      Wad gar the water ca’ his wheel,

      And drift his dyes and poisons doun

      By fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel!

      In torrid heats of late July,

      In March, beneath the bitter bise,

      He book-hunts while the loungers fly, —

      He book-hunts, though December freeze;

      In breeches baggy at the knees,

      And heedless of the public jeers,

      For these, for these, he hoards his fees, —

      Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.

      No dismal stall escapes his eye,

      He turns o’er tomes of low degrees,

      There soiled romanticists may lie,

      Or Restoration comedies;

      Each tract that flutters in the breeze

      For him is charged with hopes and fears,

      In mouldy novels fancy sees

      Aldines,