"O Wind, forgi"e a hameless loon that canna see for tears!"
"And far abune the Angus straths I saw the wild geese flee, A lang, lang skein o" beatin" wings, wi" their heids towards the sea, And aye their cryin" voices trailed ahint them on the air--"
"O Wind, hae maircy, haud yer whisht, for I daurna listen mair!"
GLOSSARY
_Airt_, point (of compa.s.s).
_Billies_, cronies.
_Braws_, finery.
_Bubbly-jock_, turkey-c.o.c.k.
_Cankered_, cross-grained.
_Causey_, paved edge of a street.
_Chanter_, mouth-piece of a bag-pipe.
_Clour_, a blow.
_Coup_, to fall.
_Deaved_, deafened, bewildered.
_Droukit_, soaked.
_Dunt_, a blow.
_Fit_, foot.
_Fleggit_, frightened.
_Gean-tree_, a wild cheerry-tree.
_Girnin"_, groaning.
_Gowk_, a cuckoo.
_Grapes_, gropes.
_Hairst_, harvest.
_Happit, happ"d_, wrapped.
_Haughs_, low-lying lands.
_Keek_, peer.
_Kep_, meet.
_Laigh_, low.
_Lane, his lane_, alone.
_Loan_, disused, overgrown road, a waste place.
_Loon_, a fellow.
_Lowe_, flame.
_Lum_, chimney.
_Mear_, mare.
_Mill-lade_, mill-race.
_Neep_, turnip.
_Poke_, pocket.
_Puddock-stules_, toadstools.
_Rodden-tree_, rowan-tree.
_Rug_, to pull.
_Sark_, shift, smock.
_Shaws_, small woods.
_Sheltie_, pony.
_Skailed_, split, dispersed.
_Smoors_, smothers.
_Sneck_, latch.
_Soom_, swim.
_Sort them_, deal with them.
_Speels_, climbs.
_Speir_, to inquire.
_Steerin"_, stirring.
_Sweir_, loth.
_Syne_, since, ago, then.
_Tawse_, a leather strap used for correcting children.
_Thole_, to endure.
_Thrawn_, twisted.
_Tint_, lost.
_Tod_, fox.
_Toom_, empty.
_Toorie_, a k.n.o.b, a topknot.
_Traivel_, to go afoot; literally, to go at a foot"s pace.
_Warslin"_, wrestling.
_Wauks_, wakes.
_Waur_, worse.
_Wean_, infant.
_Weepies_, rag-wort.
_Whaup_, curlew.
_Wildfire_, summer lightning.
_Writer_, attorney.
_Yett_, gate.
MORE SONGS OF ANGUS AND OTHERS
By VIOLET JACOB
Published at the offices of "Country Life," 20 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C. 2, and by George Newnes, LTD., 8-11, Southampton Street, Strand, W.C. 2.
New York: Charles Scribner"s Sons MCMXVIII
To A. H. J.
Past life, past tears, far past the grave, The tryst is set for me, Since, for our all, your all you gave On the slopes of Picardy.
On Angus, in the autumn nights, The ice-green light shall lie, Beyond the trees the Northern Lights Slant on the belts of sky.
But miles on miles from Scottish soil You sleep, past war and scaith, Your country"s freedman, loosed from toil, In honour and in faith.
For Angus held you in her spell, Her Grampians, faint and blue, Her ways, the speech you knew so well, Were half the world to you.