Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Sheep among the Cheviots
SHEEP AMONG THE CHEVIOTS.
Graze on, graze on, there comes no sound
Of border-warfare here,
No slogan-cry of gathering clan,
No battle-axe, or spear,
No belted knight in armor bright,
With glance of kindled ire,
Doth change the sports of Chevy-Chase
To conflict stern and dire.
Ye wist not that ye press the spot,
Where Percy held his way
Across the marches, in his pride,
The "chiefest harts to slay;"
And where the stout Earl Douglas rode
Upon his milk-white steed,
With "fifteen hundred Scottish spears,"
To stay the invaders' deed.
Ye wist not, that ye press the spot
Where, with his eagle eye,
King James, and all his gallant train,
To Flodden-field swept by.
The queen was weeping in her bower,
Amid her maids that day,
And on her cradled nursling's face
Those tears like pearl-drops lay.
For madly 'gainst her native realm
Her royal husband went,
And led his flower of chivalry
As to a tournament;
He led them on, in power and pride,
But ere the fray was o'er,
They on the blood-stained heather slept,
And he returned no more.
Graze on, graze on, there's many a rill
Bright sparkling through the glade,
Where you may freely slake your thirst,
With none to make afraid.
There's many a wandering stream that flows
From Cheviot's terraced side,
Yet not one drop of warrior's gore
Distains its crystal tide,
For Scotia from her hills hath come,
And Albion o'er the Tweed,
To give the mountain breeze the feuds
That made their noblest bleed;
And like two friends, around whose hearts
Some dire estrangement run,
Love all the better for the past,
And sit them down as one.
Friday, Oct. 2, 1840.
Among the features of Scottish scenery, which after crossing the Tweed begin to reveal themselves, are the little circular sheep-cotes at the base of the bare hills. The different races of sheep, and their comparative merits, are subjects of earnest discussion among the northern farmers. In some regions of the Cheviots the flocks have been noted for the productiveness of their fleece.
After the removal of Scott to his rural residence at Ashestiel, in writing on this subject he says, "for more than a month my head has been fairly tenanted by ideas, neither literary nor poetical. Long sheep and short sheep, and such kind of matters, have made a perfect sheepfold of my understanding." The Ettrick shepherd relates an apposite anecdote of one of his interviews with him in 1801. "During the sociality of the evening, the discourse ran much on the different breeds of sheep. The original black-faced Forest breed being always called the short sheep, and the Cheviot race the long sheep, disputes at that period ran very high about the practicable profits of each. Scott, who had come into our remote district only to collect fragments of legendary lore, was bored with everlasting discussion about long and short sheep. At length, putting on a serious, calculating face, he asked Mr. Walter Bryden 'How long must a sheep actually measure, to come under the denomination of a long sheep?' He, not perceiving the quiz, fell to answer with great simplicity, 'It's the woo' (wool) it's the woo' that makes the difference. The lang sheep ha'e the short woo', and the short sheep ha'e the lang woo'; and these are only jist kind o' names we gie' em.' Scott found it impossible to preserve his gravity, and this incident is wrought into his story of the 'Black Dwarf.' "