Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/Sheep on the Cheviot Hills

by Lydia Huntley Sigourney

SHEEP ON THE CHEVIOT HILLS.

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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 armour bright,
    With glance of kindling 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 hearts to slay,"
And where the stout Earl Douglas rode
    Upon his milk-white steed,
With fifteen hundred Scottish spears
    To stay the invader's deed.

Graze on, graze on, there's many a rill,
    Wild wandering through the glade,
Where you may freely slake your thirst,
    With none to make afraid;
There's many a murmuring 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 closer for the past,
    And sit them down as one.