Classic Poem

Dark are the black peat-hags that lie
'Twixt Cauldron Snout and High Cup Nick,
But darker is the pit that gapes
Between the dead man and the quick.

I struck his trail at Cauldron Snout;
He rose and bolted as I came,
And as he scrambled up the brae
I saw that he was running lame.

He hirpled like a wounded hare
O'er craggy bent and quaking moss,
But, cold with anger, on his heel
I followed steadily across.

Until I came to High Cup Nick
And, looking down, I saw him there,
Just lying like a tumbled bairn
With bloody stains upon his hair.

No death may ever pay the price
Of the black thing he did to me,
Yet, tumbled in the bracken bed,
He was so pitiful to see.

Dark are the black peat-hags that lie
'Twixt Cauldron Snout and High Cup Nick,
But darker is the pit that gapes
Between the dead man and the quick.