WEST HIGHLAND.
With stern a-droop, a "dowie chiel,"
I see him lugged at Beauty's heel,
A captive bound on Fashion's wheel,
Down Bond Street's aisle,
Far from his land of cairn and creel
In grey Argyle.
I wonder if in dreams he goes
Afar from streets and kindred woes,
A-rabbiting with eager nose
And strenuous paw
In birch-woods where the west wind blows
By banks of Awe;
And if his slumbers take him back
To trail the mountain-fox's track,
In corries of the shifting wrack
Where one may spy
Old Cruachan's twin Titan stack
Heaved to the sky;
Or, boudoir-bred degenerate,
If ne'er he knew the nobler state,
The birk-clad brae, the roaring spate,
The tod's dark lair,
Too spiritless to grin at Fate
Or greatly care.
And better this, perhaps you'd say,
Than break his heart for yesterday,
Uneasy in the dreams that stray
Where lost trails stretch—
Well, he's my pity either way,
Poor little wretch!