'Late at e'en, drinking the wine,
And e'er they paid the lawin',
They set a combat them between,
To fight it e'er the dawin'.'
Or still better example, the not less famous:
'The king sits in Dunfermline tower,
Drinking the blood-red wine.
Oh, where shall I find a skeely skipper
To sail this ship o' mine.'
Or of Sir James the Rose:
'O, hae ye nae heard o' Sir James the Rose,
The young laird o' Balleichan,
How he has slain a gallant squire
Whose friends are out to take him!'
Or in yet briefer space the whole materials of tragedy are given to us, as in that widely-known and multiform legend of the Twa Sisters which Tennyson took as the basis of his We were two daughters of one race:
'He courted the eldest wi' glove and wi' ring,
Binnorie, O Binnorie!
But he loved the youngest aboon a' thing,
By the bonnie mill dams o' Binnorie.'
Sometimes a brilliant or glowing picture is called up before our eyes by a stroke or two; as—
'The boy stared wild like a grey goshawk,'
or