He who, smit to the heart by that youngest comeliest daughter, Bent, unregardful of spies, at her feet, spreading clothes from her wash-tub? Can it be with him through Badenoch, Morrer, and Ardnamurchan; Can it be with him he beareth the golden-haired lassie of Rannoch? This fierce, furious walking—o’er mountain-top and moorland, Sleeping in shieling and bothie, with drover on hill-side sleeping, Folded in plaid, where sheep are strewn thicker than rocks by Loch Awen, This fierce, furious travel unwearying—cannot in truth be Merely the wedding tour succeeding the week of wooing! No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not; I see him, Lo, and he sitteth alone, and these are his words in the mountain. Spirits escaped from the body can enter and be with the living; Entering unseen, and retiring unquestioned, they bring,—do they feel too?— Joy, pure joy, as they mingle and mix inner essence with essence; Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! Joy, pure joy, bringing with them, and, when they retire, leaving after No cruel shame, no prostration, despondency; memories rather, Sweet happy hopes bequeathing. Ah! wherefore not thus with the living? Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! Is it impossible, say you, these passionate fervent impulsions, These projections of spirit to spirit, these inward embraces, Should in strange ways, in her dreams, should visit her, strengthen her, shield her? Is it possible, rather, that these great floods of feeling Setting-in daily from me towards her should, impotent wholly, Bring neither sound nor motion to that sweet shore they heave to? Efflux here, and there no stir nor pulse of influx! Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! Surely, surely, when sleepless I lie in the mountain lamenting, Surely, surely, she hears in her dreams a voice, ‘I am with thee,’ Saying, ‘although not with thee; behold, for we mated our spirits Then, when we stood in the chamber, and knew not the words we were saying;’ Yea, if she felt me within her, when not with one finger I touched her Surely she knows it, and feels it while sorrowing here in the moorland. Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! Spirits with spirits commingle and separate; lightly as winds do, Spice-laden South with the ocean-born zephyr! they mingle and sunder; No sad remorses for them, no visions of horror and vileness. Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! Surely the force that here sweeps me along in its violent impulse, Surely my strength shall be in her, my help and protection about her, Surely in inner-sweet gladness and vigour of joy shall sustain her, Till, the brief winter o’er-past, her own true sap in the springtide Rise, and the tree I have bared be verdurous e’en as aforetime!