THE WOUNDED PTARMIGAN. 
Or where down upon the storm 
Plaided shepherds gaze in wonder 
Round thy rocky sides, Cairngorm ! 
Kolling with its clouds and thunder ? 
Or, with summit heaven-directed, 
Where Benvoirlich views, in pride, 
All his skiey groves reflected 
In Loch Ketturin's tide ? 
Boots it not ; but this we know — 
What a wild, free life was thine, 
Whether on the peak of snow 
Or amid the clumps of pine ; 
Now on high, begirt with heath ; 
Now decoyed by cloudless weather 
To the golden broom beneath, 
Happy with thy mates together. 
Yours were every cliff and cranny 
Of your birth's majestic hill, 
Tameless flock ! and ye were many, 
Ere the spoiler came to kill. 
Did the Genius of the place, 
Which of living things, but you, 
Had for long beheld no trace, 
That unhallowed visit rue ? 
Did the gathered snow of years 
Which begirt that mountain's forehead, 
Thawing, melt as 'twere in tears 
O'er that natural outrage horrid? 
Did the lady-fern hang drooping. 
And the quivering pine-trees sigh, 
As, to cheer his game-dogs whooping, 
Passed the spoiler by ? 
None may know ; the dream is o'er; 
Bliss and beauty cannot last. 
To that haunt, for evermore, 
Ye are creatures of the past ; 
And for you it mourns in vain. 
While the dirgeful night-breeze only 
Sings, and falls the fitful rain, 
'Mid your homes forlorn and lonely. 
Ye have passed ; the bonds enthral you 
Of supine and wakeless death ; 
Never more shall spring recall you 
To the scented heath. 
