Collected English Verse — James Hogg. b. 1770, d. 1835 (Part 3 of 4)

to mortal view
Appear’d like those o’er which they flew!
That land to human spirits given,
The lowermost vales of the storied heaven;
From thence they can view the world below,
And heaven’s blue gates with sapphires glow,
More glory yet unmeet to know.

They bore her far to a mountain green,
To see what mortal never had seen;
And they seated her high on a purple sward,
And bade her heed what she saw and heard,
And note the changes the spirits wrought,
For now she lived in the land of thought.
She look’d, and she saw nor sun nor skies,
But a crystal dome of a thousand dyes:
She look’d, and she saw nae land aright,
But an endless whirl of glory and light:
And radiant beings went and came,
Far swifter than wind, or the linkàed flame.
She hid her e’en frae the dazzling view;
She look’d again, and the scene was new.

She saw a sun on a summer sky,
And clouds of amber sailing bye;
A lovely land beneath her lay,
And that land had glens and mountains gray;
And that land had valleys and hoary piles,
And marlàed²⁴ seas, and a thousand isles.
Its fields were speckled, its forests green,
And its lakes were all of the dazzling sheen,
Like magic mirrors, where slumbering lay
The sun and the sky and the cloudlet gray;
Which heaved and trembled, and gently swung,
On every shore they seem’d to be hung;
For there they were seen on their downward plain
A thousand times and a thousand again;
In winding lake and placid firth,
Little peaceful heavens in the bosom of earth.

Kilmeny sigh’d and seem’d to grieve,
For she found her heart to that land did cleave;
She saw the corn wave on the vale,
She saw the deer run down the dale;
She saw the plaid and the broad claymore,
And the brows that the badge of freedom bore;
And she thought she had seen the land before.

She saw a lady sit on a throne,
The fairest that ever the sun shone on!
A lion lick’d her hand of milk,
And she held him in a leish of silk;
And a leifu’²⁵ maiden stood at her knee,
With a silver wand and melting e’e;
Her sovereign shield till love stole in
And poison’d all the fount within.

Then a gruff untoward bedesman came,
And hundit the lion on his dame;
And the guardian maid wi’ the dauntless e’e,
She dropp’d a tear, and left her knee;
And she saw till the queen frae the lion fled,
Till the bonniest flower of the world lay dead;
A coffin was set on a distant plain,
And she saw the red blood fall like rain;
Then bonnie Kilmeny’s heart grew sair,
And she turn’d away, and could look nae mair.

Then the gruff grim carle girn’d²⁶ amain,
And they trampled him down, but he rose again;
And he baited the lion to deeds of weir,²⁷
Till he lapp’d the blood to the kingdom dear;
And weening his head was danger-preef,
When crown’d with the rose and clover leaf,
He gowl’d²⁸ at the carle, and chased him away
To feed wi’ the deer on the mountain gray.
He gowl’d at the carle, and geck’d²⁹ at Heaven,
But his mark was set, and his arles³⁰ given.
Kilmeny a while her e’en withdrew;
She look’d again, and the scene was new.

She saw before her fair unfurl’d
One half of all the glowing world,
Where oceans roll’d, and rivers ran,
To bound the aims of sinful man.
She saw a people, fierce and fell,
Burst frae their bounds like fiends of hell;
Their lilies grew, and the eagle flew;
And she herkàed on her ravening crew,
Till the cities and towers were wrapp’d in a blaze,
And the thunder it roar’d o’er the lands and the seas.
The widows they wail’d, and the red blood ran,
And she threaten’d an end to the race of man;
She never lened,³¹ nor stood in awe,
Till caught by the lion’s deadly paw.
O, then the eagle swink’d³² for life,
And brainyell’d³³ up a mortal strife;
But flew she north, or flew she south,
She met wi’ the gowl o’ the lion’s mouth.

With a mooted³⁴ wing and waefu’ maen,
The eagle sought her eiry again;
But lang may she cower in her bloody nest,
And lang, lang sleek her wounded breast,
Before she sey³⁵ another flight,
To play wi’ the norland lion’s might.

But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw,
So far surpassing nature’s law,
The singer’s voice wad sink away,
And the string of his harp wad cease to play.
But she saw till the sorrows of man were bye,
And all was love and harmony;
Till the stars of heaven fell calmly away,
Like flakes of snaw on a winter day.