A mellow voice Fitz-Eustace had,
The air he chose was wild and sad;
Such have I heard, in Scottish land,
Rise from the busy harvest band,
When falls before the mountaineer,
On Lowland plains, the ripened ear.
Now one shrill voice the notes prolong,
Now a wild chorus swells the song:
Oft have I listened, and stood still,
As it came softened up the hill,
And deemed it the lament of men
Who languished for their native glen;
And thought how sad would be such sound
On Susquehana’s swampy ground,
Kentucky’s wood-encumbered brake,
Or wild Ontario’s boundless lake,
Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain,
Recalled fair Scotland’s hills again!
