When I looked down from the crag, and beheld the fair-haired stranger
dallying with his bride,
I wished I had never revisited the glen of my dreams.
_Such things came into my heart as that sun was going down.
A pain of which I shall never be rid, what availeth me to tell it?_
`Since it has been heard that the carpenter had persuaded thee,
My sleep is disturbed---busy is foolishness within me at midnight.
The kindness that has been between us,---I cannot shake off that memory
in visions;
Thou callest me not to thy side; but love is to me for a messenger.
_There is strife within me, and I toss to be at liberty;
And ever closer it clings, and the delusion is growing to me as a tree._
`Anne, yellow-haired daughter of Donald, surely thou knowest not
how it is with me---
That it is old love, unrepaid, which has worn down from me my strength;
That when far from thee, beyond many mountains, the wound in my
heart was throbbing,
Stirring, and searching for ever, as when I sat beside thee on the turf.
_Now, then, hear me this once, if for ever I am to be without thee,
My spirit is broken--give me one kiss ere I leave this land!_
`Haughtily and scornfully the maid looked upon me;
Never will it be work for thy fingers to unloose the band from my curls;
Thou hast been absent a twelwemonth, and six were seeking me diligently;
Was thy superiority so high, that there should be no end of abiding for thee?
_Ha! ha! ha!---hast thou at last become sick?
Is it love that is give death to thee? surely the enemy has been in no haste.
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