II.

Now why are Dunse’s people glad,
Who once were wont to be so sad;
How was the feudal hatred staid
That waste their lovely fields had laid;
Why rolls the Whittadder [6] so white,
The scene of many a bloody fight;
And how has peace reception found
On such unhallowed bloody ground?
I may not tell the change of time;
It ill becomes my minstrel rhyme:
’Twere impious surely to relate
The fancied works of fancied fate.
Enough, the bloody feud is staid;
Enough, the sword aside is laid;
And Whittadder long may’st thou flow
With spotless wave and crystal tide;
And may’st thou never, never know,
Again the strife of border side.