Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 32

25 Back from the blue pavemented whun,[28]

And from ilk plaster wall, The hot reflexing of the sun Inflames the air and all.

26 The labourers that timely rose, All weary, faint, and weak, For heat down to their houses goes, Noon-meat and sleep to take.

27 The caller[29] wine in cave is sought, Men's brothing[30] b.r.e.a.s.t.s to cool; The water cold and clear is brought, And sallads steeped in ule.[31]

28 With gilded eyes and open wings, The c.o.c.k his courage shows; With claps of joy his breast he dings,[32]

And twenty times he crows.

29 The dove with whistling wings so blue, The winds can fast collect, Her purple pens turn many a hue Against the sun direct.

30 Now noon is gone--gone is mid-day, The heat does slake at last, The sun descends down west away, For three o'clock is past.

31 The rayons of the sun we see Diminish in their strength, The shade of every tower and tree Extended is in length.

32 Great is the calm, for everywhere The wind is setting down, The reek[33] throws up right in the air, From every tower and town.

33 The mavis and the philomeen,[34]

The starling whistles loud, The cushats[35] on the branches green, Full quietly they crood.[36]

34 The gloamin[37] comes, the clay is spent, The sun goes out of sight, And painted is the occident With purple sanguine bright.

35 The scarlet nor the golden thread, Who would their beauty try, Are nothing like the colour red And beauty of the sky.

36 What pleasure then to walk and see, Endlong[38] a river clear, The perfect form of every tree Within the deep appear.

37 The salmon out of cruives[39] and creels[40]

Uphauled into scouts;[41]

The bells and circles on the weills,[42]

Through leaping of the trouts.

38 O sure it were a seemly thing, While all is still and calm, The praise of G.o.d to play and sing With trumpet and with shalm.

39 Through all the land great is the gild[43]

Of rustic folks that cry; Of bleating sheep, from they be fill'd, Of calves and rowting kye.

40 All labourers draw home at even, And can to others say, Thanks to the gracious G.o.d of heaven, Who sent this summer day.

[1] 'Shade:' for shaded.

[2] 'Nor:' than.

[3] 'Syne:' then.

[4] 'Maist and least:' largest and smallest.

[5] 'Abread:' abroad.

[6] 'Boulden:' emboldened.

[7] 'Sheen:' shining.

[8] 'Upbraids:' uprises.

[9] 'Timeous:' early.

[10]'Camow-nosed:' flat-nosed.

[11]'Rowting kye:' lowing kine.

[12]'Reek:' fog.

[13]'Skails:' dissipates.

[14]'Begaired:' dressed out.

[15]'Pend:' arch.

[16]'Spraings:' streaks.

[17] 'Steir:' stir.

[18] 'Caller:' cool.

[19] 'Rin:' run.

[20] 'Woltering:' tumbling.

[21] 'Drown:' drone, be idle.

[22] 'Freshure:' freshness.

[23] 'Fauld:' fold.

[24] 'Tapish'd:' stretched as on a carpet.

[25] 'Beare:' sound, music.

[26] 'Rayons dure:' hard or keen rays.

[27] 'Gleid:' fire.

[28] 'Whun:' whinstone.

[29] 'Caller:' cool.

[30] 'Brothing:' burning.

[31] 'Ule:' oil.

[32] 'Dings:' beats.

[33] 'Reek:' smoke.

[34] 'The mavis and the philomeen:' thrush and nightingale.

[35] 'Cushats:' wood-pigeons.

[36] 'Crood:' coo.

[37] 'Gloamin:' evening.

[38] 'Endlong:' along.

[39] 'Cruives:' cages for catching fish.

[40] 'Creels:' baskets.

[41] 'Scouts:' small boats or yawls.

[42] 'Weills:' eddies.

[43] 'Gild:' throng.

OTHER SCOTTISH POETS.

About the same time with Hume flourished two or three poets in Scotland of considerable merit, such as Alexander Scott, author of satires and amatory poems, and called sometimes the 'Scottish Anacreon;' Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, father of the famous Secretary Lethington, who, in his advanced years, composed and dictated to his daughter a few moral and conversational pieces, and who collected, besides, into a MS. which bears his name, the productions of some of his contemporaries; and Alexander Montgomery, author of an allegorical poem, ent.i.tled 'The Cherry and the Slae.'

The allegory is not well managed, but some of the natural descriptions are sweet and striking. Take the two following stanzas as a specimen:--