HEATHER ALE. 



There rose a king in Scotland, 



A fell man to his foes, 

 He smote the Picts in battle, 



He hunted them like roes. 

 Over miles of the red mountain 



He hunted as they fled, 

 And strewed the dwarfish bodies 



Of the dying and the dead. 



Summer came in the country, 



Red was the heather bell; 

 But the manner of the brewing 



Was none alive to tell. 

 In graves that were like children's 



On many a mountain head 

 The brewsters of the heather 



Lay numbered with the dead. 



The king in the red moorland 



Rode on a summer's day ; 

 And the bees hummed, and the curlews 



Cried beside the way. 

 The king rode, and was angry, 



Black was his brow and pale, 

 To rule in a land of heather 



And lack the Heather Ale. 



It fortuned that his vassals, 

 Riding free on the heath, 



Came on a stone that was fallen 

 And vermin hid beneath. 



105 



