THE LAMENT OF ROBERT BURNS 209 



And traced its bonnie howes and Laughs, 

 Where Unties sang and lambkins play'd : 



I sat me doun upon a craig, 

 And drank my fill o' fancy's dream, 



When, from the eddying deep below, 

 Uprose the genius of the stream. 



' Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow, 

 And troubled, like his wintry wave. 

 And deep, as sughs the boding wind 

 Among his eaves, the sigh he gave. 

 " And came ye here, my son," he cried, 



" To wander in my birken shade ? 

 To muse some favourite Scottish theme. 

 Or sing some favourite Scottish maid ? 



' " There was a time, it 's nae lang syne, 



Ye might hae seen me in my pride, 

 When a' my banks sae bravely saw 



Their woody pictures in my tide ; 

 When hanging beech and spreading elm 



Shaded my stream sae clear and cool ; 

 And stately oaks their twisted arms 



Threw broad and dark across the pool. 



* " When, glinting through the trees, appear'd 

 The wee white cot aboon the mill, 

 And peacefu' rose its ingle reek. 

 That slowly curled up the hill. 

 But now the cot is bare and cauld, 



Its branchy shelter 's lost and gane, 

 And scarce a stinted birk is left 

 To shiver in the blast its lane." 

 O 



