Classic Poem

Colin's cattle have gone astray,
Far-wandered, under spells;
To the myrtle of the moorland,
Thicket, or golden strand.
He has sought them in the oat-fields,
And by the cressy wells,
And cried for them with weeping
Along the island sand.
But only the lapwing answers
To the herd-boy's pleading calls,
Ripple of wind in the rushes,
The drone of a passing bee;
Oh love! my little Colin,
The autumn evening falls,
Thy cattle are lost to thee!

He has sought them on the sweet grass
About the kingly tombs—
Nought there but the beetle,
And the chirrup of the wren!
Stood, fearful, in the birchwood
Where half-light dwells and glooms,
And heard but fairy chucklings
Where the badger has his den.
Oh grief! for little Colin,
That he should go asleep
By the wild-bees' store of honey
In the sound of water-falls;
While the kine were on the sea-wrack
And their old herds in the deep
To whistle them to fairy stalls!

Ochanie! for Colin's cattle,
With their rich and salty milk;
Fondly his mother sang to them
Sea-reiver songs of old;
Coaxed them to their milking
With a hand as soft as silk,
Strewed the seaweed and the shingle
In the summer shealing's fold.
“Not common kine are these,” she said,
“Of the beggar landward breed,
But cattle of the Quiet Folk
That dwell in dun and deep.
Be wakeful little hero, mother's treasure,
When the tides cry where they feed;
They pass if once you sleep!.”

Gone are the eerie cattle
That browsed sea-weedy bays,
With ever the trout and the herring-scales
Like gems on their glistening hides;
And the wee white calf of Colin's heart,
That on winter's stormy days
Ran bleating down to the spindrift,
And stood knee-deep in tides.
He may call them on the hillock,
He may search along the shore;
Weep his way through gloaming
Till the far sea-lamps are lit;
They have gone to other pastures,
He will bring them home no more
To the byre where the blind bats flit.

They have gone, the fairy cattle,
Across the thyme and thrift,
To where the old sea-meadow life
With all its joy beguiles;
To-night they go to milking
Where the lobsters stare and drift
Around the cavern cow-sheds
Of the green, salt, swinging kyles.
To-morrow for the skerries
Where the sea-girls comb their hair,
The sappy sea-plain grazings
Where the tide rips through the Sound,
But my grief! my grief! for Colin
And the wee calf of his care;
It will never more be found!