130 140 150 It shall sing in your sleeping ears, And the warning of the dead.>> Now when the night was over But never a name like this; With many a man he counselled Of high and low degree, With the herdsmen on the mountains On stones upon the moor. And many a name he was told, But never the name of his fears Never, in east or west, The name that rang in his ears: Names of men and of clans, Names for the grass and the tree, For the smallest tarn in the mountains, The smallest reef in the sea: Names for the high and low, The names of the craig and the flat; But in all the land of Scotland, Never a name like that. II. THE SEEKING OF THE NAME And now there was speech in the south, And a man of the south that was wise, A periwig'd lord of London,2 Called on the clans to rise. And the riders rode, and the summons To the land of the sea and the heather, To Appin and Mamore. It called on all to gather From every scrog and scaur, That loved their fathers' tartan And the ancient game of war. And down the watery valley And up the windy hill, Once more, as in the olden, The pipes were sounding shrill; Again in highland sunshine The naked steel was bright; And the lads, once more in tartan, 160 170 180 190 200 «O, why should I dwell here When the clansmen shout for battle And the war-swords clash in strife? I cannae joy at feast, I cannae sleep in bed, For the wonder of the word And the warning of the dead. It hums in my waking head, The name-Ticonderoga, The utterance of the dead. Where flew King George's ensign Rang far across the plain: They drank the rapid Main. The Tartans filed their way, << Many a name have I heard,» he thought, Full many a name both here and there, When I was at home in my father's house In the land of the naked knee, Between the eagles that fly in the lift And the herrings that swim in the sea, And now that I am a captain-man With a braw cockade in my hat— Many a name have I heard,» he thought, «But never a name like that.>> III. THE PLACE OF THE NAME There fell a war in a woody place, Lay far across the sea, A war of the march in the mirk midnight The shaven head and the painted face, The silent foot in the wood, In a land of a strange, outlandish tongue It fell about the gloaming The general stood with his staff, 210 220 230 240 250 «Far have I been and much have I seen, But here we have woods on every hand Far have I been and much have I seen, But never the beat of this; And there's one must go down to that waterside To see how deep it is.>> It fell in the dusk of the night And a man of the woody land, With the shaven head and the painted face, Went down at his right hand. It fell in the quiet night, There was never a sound to ken; But all of the woods to the right and the left «Far have I been and much have I seen, Both as a man and boy, But never have I set forth a foot On so perilous an employ.»> It fell in the dusk of the night |