The hart and hind approach’d the place, As lingering yet he stood; And there, before Lord Douglas’ face, With them he cross’d the flood. Lord Douglas leap’d on his berry-brown steed, And spurred him the Leader o’er; But though he rode with lightning speed, He never saw them more. Some said to hill, and some to glen, Their wond’rous course had been; But ne’er in haunts of living men Again was Thomas seen. SIR WALTER SCOTT. KILMENY. Bonnie Kilmeny gaed up the glen; But it wasna to meet Duneira’s men, Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see, For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. It was only to hear the yorling sing, And pu’ the cress-flower round the spring; The scarlet hypp and the hind-berrye, And the nest that hung frae the hazel-tree; For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. But lang may her minny look o’er the wa’; And lang may she seek i’ the greenwood shaw; Lang the Laird o’ Duneira blame, And lang, lang greet or Kilmeny come hame! When many lang day had come and fled, When grief grew calm and hope was dead, When mass for Kilmeny’s soul had been sung, When the bedesman had prayed and the dead-bell rung, Late, late in a gloaming, when all was still, When the fringe was red on the westlin hill, The wood was sere, the moon i’ the wane, The reek o’ the cot hung o’er the plain, Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane; When the ingle lowed wi’ an eiry leme— Late, late in the gloaming, Kilmeny came hame! “Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been? Lang hae we sought baith holt and dean; By burn, by ford, by greenwood tree, Yet you are halesome and fair to see. Where gat ye that joup o’ the lily sheen? That bonnie snood o’ the birk sae green? And those roses, the fairest that ever were seen? Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?” Kilmeny look’d up wi’ a lovely grace, But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny’s face; As still was her look, and as still was her e’e, As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea, Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea. For Kilmeny had been, she kenned not where, And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare; Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew, Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew. But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung, And the airs of heaven played round her tongue, When she spoke of the lovely forms she had seen, And a land where sin had never been; A land of love and a land of light, Withouten sun, or moon, or night, Where the river swa’d a living stream, And the light a pure and cloudless beam; The land of vision it would seem, A still, an everlasting dream. In yon greenwood there is a waik, And in that waik there is a wene, And in that wene that is a maike; That neither has flesh, nor blood, nor bane; And down in yon greenwood he walks his lane.