This is selected as a specimen of Mackay's descriptive poetry. It is in a style peculiar to the Highlands, where description runs so entirely into epithets and adjectives, as to render recitation breathless, and translation hopeless. Here, while we have retained the imagery, we have been unable to find room, or rather rhyme, for one half of the epithets in the original. The power of alliterative harmony in the original song is extraordinary. I. At waking so early Was snow on the Ben, And, the glen of the hill in, The storm-drift so chilling The linnet was stilling, That couch'd in its den; And poor robin was shrilling In sorrow his strain. II. Every grove was expecting Its leaf shed in gloom; The sap it is draining, Down rootwards 'tis straining, And the bark it is waning As dry as the tomb, And the blackbird at morning Is shrieking his doom. III. Ceases thriving, the knotted, The stunted birk-shaw;[90] While the rough wind is blowing, And the drift of the snowing Is shaking, o'erthrowing, The copse on the law. IV. 'Tis the season when nature Is all in the sere, When her snow-showers are hailing, Her rain-sleet assailing, Her mountain winds wailing, Her rime-frosts severe. V. 'Tis the season of leanness, Unkindness, and chill; Its whistle is ringing, An iciness bringing, Where the brown leaves are clinging In helplessness, still, And the snow-rush is delving With furrows the hill. VI. The sun is in hiding, Or frozen its beam On the peaks where he lingers, On the glens, where the singers,[91] With their bills and small fingers Are raking the stream, Or picking the midstead For forage--and scream. VII. When darkens the gloaming Oh, scant is their cheer! All benumb'd is their song in The hedge they are thronging, And for shelter still longing, The mortar[92] they tear; Ever noisily, noisily Squealing their care. VIII. The running stream's chieftain[93] Is trailing to land, So flabby, so grimy, So sickly, so slimy,-- The spots of his prime he Has rusted with sand; Crook-snouted his crest is That taper'd so grand. IX. How mournful in winter The lowing of kine; How lean-back'd they shiver, How draggled their cover, How their nostrils run over With drippings of brine, So scraggy and crining In the cold frost they pine. X.