Page:Ballads, Stevenson, 1890.djvu/77

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

With many a man he counselled
Of high and low degree,
With the herdsmen on the mountains
140And the fishers of the sea.
And he came and went unweary,
And read the books of yore,
And the runes that were written of old
On stones upon the moor.
And many a name he was told,
But never the name of his fears—
Never, in east or west,
The name that rang in his ears:
Names of men and of clans,
150Names for the grass and the tree,
For the smallest tarn in the mountains,
The smallest reef in the sea:
Names for the high and low,
The names of the craig and the flat;
But in all the land of Scotland,
Never a name like that.


II. THE SEEKING OF THE NAME.

And now there was speech in the south,

And a man of the south that was wise,

65