THE BELL-FLOWERS 
199 
He wept, that hardy mountaineer, 
When faded thus his loved heath-flower ; 
Yet, ^mid the ills of life, no tear 
Had wet his cheek until that hour : 
You might have deemed the mountain tree 
Had sooner shrunk before the blast, 
Or that his native rock should be 
Rent by the winds which hurried past, 
Rather than he a tear should shed 
Because a wild-flower drooped its head. 
It would not grow, the heather flower. 
Far from its native land exiled, 
Though breezes from the forest bower 
Greeted the lonely mountain child; 
It better loved the bleak, wild wind 
Which blew upon the Highland hill. 
And for the rocky heath it pined, 
Though tended both with care and skill ; 
An exile on a stranger strand, 
It languished for its native land. 
Oh ! if the heather had but grown 
And bloomed upon a foreign scene, 
Its owner had not felt alone, 
Though a sad exile he had been ; 
But when he marked its early death, 
He thought that, like his mountain flower, 
Withered beneath a foreign breath, 
He soon might meet his final hour. 
And die, a stranger and alone, 
Unwept, unpitied, and unknown. 
A. P. 
