But whiles, maybe, to them ye’ll read
Blads o’ the Covenanting creed,
And whiles their pagan wames ye’ll feed
On halesome parritch;
And syne ye’ll gar them learn a screed
O’ the Shorter Carritch.
Yet thae uncovenanted shavers
Hae rowth, ye say, o’ clash and clavers
O’ gods and etins—auld wives’ havers,
But their delight;
The voice o’ him that tells them quavers
Just wi’ fair fright.
And ye might tell, ayont the faem,
Thae Hieland clashes o’ our hame
To speak the truth, I takna shame
To half believe them;
And, stamped wi’ Tusitala’s name,
They’ll a’ receive them.
And folk to come ayont the sea
May hear the yowl o’ the Banshie,
And frae the water-kelpie flee,
Ere a’ things cease,
And island bairns may stolen be
By the Folk o’ Peace.
FOR MARK TWAIN’S JUBILEE
To brave Mark Twain, across the sea,
The years have brought his jubilee;
One hears it half with pain,
That fifty years have passed and gone
Since danced the merry star that shone
Above the babe, Mark Twain!
How many and many a weary day,
When sad enough were we, ‘Mark’s way’
(Unlike the Laureate’s Mark’s)
Has made us laugh until we cried,
And, sinking back exhausted, sighed,
Like Gargery, Wot larx!
We turn his pages, and we see
The Mississippi flowing free;
We turn again, and grin
O’er all Tom Sawyer did and planned,
With him of the Ensanguined Hand,
With Huckleberry Finn!
Spirit of mirth, whose chime of bells
Shakes on his cap, and sweetly swells
Across the Atlantic main,
Grant that Mark’s laughter never die,
That men, through many a century,
May chuckle o’er Mark Twain!