Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, [spanked, puddle]
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet;
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet; [song]
Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, [staring]
Lest bogles catch him unawares, [goblins]
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. [ghosts, owls]
By this time he was cross the ford,
Where in the snaw the chapman smoor'd; [smothered]
And past the birks and meikle stane, [birches, big]
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane;
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, [gorse, pile of stones]
Where hunters fand the murder'd bairn; [found]
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Where Mungo's mither hang'd hersel,
Before him Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll;
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze; [blaze]
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing; [chink]
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225