Blair Collection > Selections from the Gaelic bards

A VERY COLD DAY. 239
Where'er he will they go implicitly,
Their cordial praises greet his every act,
For fields around they spread his glorious fame
With a persistent clamour one enjoys,
And learns a lesson from, perchance, at times.
He needs no more but chase some wretched child,
And shake the ragged kilt about his knees,
How they shout, " Bravoes ! " for the brilliant feat —
How he drinks in the triumphs of his might,
And walks the hero of his children's pride,
His head stretched out, and turned from side to side,
For fear he lose a single compliment !
Little they heed the blustering of the breeze —
The arrowy cold ne'er pierces through their breast,
Well sheltered from the stinking element,
With down, and fat, and feathers, and thick skin.
Not so yon thin-clad woman, gathering peats,
In summer's pride abandoned on the moor,
And of no use unto their owner now ;
Yet she, poor creature, scarcely is she deemed
Much better than a thief, because she takes
That superfluity of fozie turf,
To shield her from the nipping, nightly cold.
The shades are deepening as she homeward wends,
The wild red sky is scowling in the west,
And the air bites unto the very bone,
As evening changes to pervading night;
Then the moors darken till they look as black
As the storm-scowl of midnight's starless sky.
Luckless is he who has to thread them now,
And seek his home through their deceptive maze :
Better to tread along the noisy beach,
Where the wave whitens on the cold, dank shore ;
Though stones and holes and pools impede the way,
And silent rocks, like some tall sentries, stand,
To guard the region from intruder's foot,
While round them howls the melancholy wind,
And moans beneath them the ancestral wave.
Wild voice of winter, now 's thy time to rise