Blair Collection > Selections from the Gaelic bards

220 HEBRIDIAN SKETCHES
For the sad stamp's on his features
Which Dubh Shee's hard arrow bore ;
On the moor Clan Gillian redden d
With their brave and boiling gore.
Only two are with the driver
Of a rolling, rocking car,
Stretch'd whereon the dead man's carried
From the fiery field of war.
Two that walk in silent sorrow —
Ladies of his kindred are —
Mourning, to the field of slaughter
Come to seek him from afar.
As they drive him slowly onward,
O'er the bad and broken way,
His head, with all its matted tresses,
Nodded where he lifeless lay.
Then the driver laugh'd who saw him,
Large and massy, lie along,
Senseless, soulless — him so lately
Foremost in the martial throng.
Laugh'd! and quicker drove him onward,
Yet again to see the head
Nodding, without will or reason,
With its light of manhood fled.
Nodding at the boor who jeered him
With that mean, malicious scorn,
Nursed in secret by the envy
In the vulgar spirit born.
Then the ladies hastened forward —
Not a word the younger said,