XVIII.
"The plough lay rusting in the field:
We drove our cattle down,
We sold them—'twas our last resource,
Within a distant town.
The poor dumb creatures! when they went
I knew the hour must come
For the like woeful journey next,
To those that were not dumb.
XIX.
"And so it fell. One weary day
The bitter news was told,
That the fair land we loved so well
Was to a stranger sold.
The race that for a thousand years
Had dwelt within the glen,
Were rudely summoned from their homes,
To beg as broken men.
XX.
"Some would not leave—the ruffians tore
The crumbling thatch away;
They plucked the rafters from the wall,
And bade them starve and stay!
The old, the bedrid, and the sick,
The wife and new-born child—
I thank my God I did not strike,
Although my heart was wild!
XXI.
"We parted—kinsfolk, clansmen, friends,
With heavy hearts and sore;
We parted by the water-side,
To meet on earth no more.
The sun was sinking to his rest
Amidst a lurid sky,
And from the darkening hill above
We heard the falcon's cry."
XXII.
"O wicked deed, O cruel men!
O sad and woeful day!
But, grandsire, tell us of your friends
And kinsfolk, where are they?"
"They lie within the festering heaps,
Among the city dead—
Scant burial had they for their bones,
No gravestone marks their head;