So grand, so grassy, so richly scented,
And gemm’d with flowers of sweetest smell.
Thy knolls and hillocks in dark-green clothing,
Rise o’er the green sward with gentle swell,
Where waves the cannach, and grows the darnel,
And troop the wild deer I love so well.
Duncan’s chief love-song is characteristic. It is composed for his “spouse newly wedded” and not for an unmarried maiden. This is how the bard describes the manner in which he made choice of “Fair Young Mary”:—
My net I cast in the waters clear,
And strained hard to draw it to land,
And lo! I had caught a [bright sea-trout],