I lay my hands upon the stile,
The stile is lone and cold.
The burnie that goes babbling by
Says naught that can be told.
Yet, stranger! here from year to year,
She keeps her shadowy kine;
Oh, Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!
Step out three steps where Andrew stood,—
Why blanch thy cheeks for fear?
The ancient stile is not alone,
'Tis not the burn I hear!
She makes her immemorial moan,
She keeps her shadowy kine,
Oh, Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!
THE FETCH: DORA SIGERSON SHORTER
"What makes you so late at the tryst,
What caused you so long to be?
I have waited a weary time
For the hour you promised me."
"Oh, glad were I here by your side,
Full many an hour ago,
But for what there passed on the road
All so mournfully and so slow."
"And what have you met on the road
That kept you so long and so late?"
"O full many an hour has gone
Since I left my father's gate.
"As I hastened on in the gloom,
By the road to you tonight,
I passed the corpse of a young maid
All clad in a shroud of white."
"And was she some friend once cherished,
Or was she a sister dead,
That you left your own true lover
Till the trysting hour had sped?"