And so he was quiet: and that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black.
And by came an angel, who had a bright key, And he open’d the coffins, and set them all free; Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run, And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
Then, naked and white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind; And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.
And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark, And got with our bags and our brushes to work; Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm: So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
[NORA’S VOW]
I Hear what Highland Nora said,— ‘The Earlie’s son I will not wed, Should all the race of nature die, And none be left but he and I. For all the gold, for all the gear, And all the lands both far and near, That ever valour lost or won, I would not wed the Earlie’s son.’
II ‘A maiden’s vows,’ old Callum spoke, ‘Are lightly made, and lightly broke; The heather on the mountain’s height Begins to bloom in purple light; The frost-wind soon shall sweep away That lustre deep from glen and brae; Yet Nora, ere its bloom be gone, May blithely wed the Earlie’s son.’—