But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw, So far surpassing nature’s law, The singer’s voice wad sink away, And the string of his harp wad cease to play. But she saw till the sorrows of man were bye, And all was love and harmony; Till the stars of Heaven fell calmly away, Like the flakes of snaw on a winter day.
Then Kilmeny begged again to see The friends she had left in her own countrye, To tell of the place where she had been, And the glories that lay in the land unseen; To warn the living maidens fair, The loved of Heaven, the spirits’ care, That all whose minds unmeled remain Shall bloom in beauty when time is gane.
With distant music, soft and deep, They lulled Kilmeny sound asleep; And when she awakened, she lay her lane, All happed with flowers in the green-wood wene. When seven lang years had come and fled; When grief was calm, and hope was dead; When scarce was remembered Kilmeny’s name, Late, late in a gloamin Kilmeny came hame! And O, her beauty was fair to see, But still and steadfast was her e’e! Such beauty bard may never declare, For there was no pride nor passion there; And the soft desire of maiden’s e’en In that mild face could never be seen. Her seymar was the lily flower, And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower; And her voice like the distant melodye, That floats along the twilight sea. But she loved to raike the lanely glen, And keeped afar frae the haunts of men; Her holy hymns unheard to sing, To suck the flowers, and drink the spring. But wherever her peaceful form appeared, The wild beasts of the hill were cheered; The wolf played blythely round the field, The lordly byson lowed and kneeled; The dun deer wooed with manner bland, And cowered aneath her lily hand. And when at even the woodlands rung, When hymns of other worlds she sung, In ecstasy of sweet devotion, O, then the glen was all in motion! The wild beasts of the forest came, Broke from their bughts and faulds the tame, And goved around, charmed and amazed; Even the dull cattle crooned and gazed, And murmured and looked with anxious pain For something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard came with the throstle-cock; The corby left her houf in the rock; The blackbird alang wi’ the eagle flew; The hind came tripping o’er the dew; The wolf and the kid their raike began, And the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret ran; The hawk and the hern attour them hung, And the merl and the mavis forhooyed their young; And all in a peaceful ring were hurled: It was like an eve in a sinless world!