Highland Cattle

Down the wintry mountain

Like a cloud they come,

Not like a cloud in its silent shroud

When the sky is leaden and the earth all dumb,

But tramp, tramp, tramp,

With a roar and a shock,

And stamp, stamp, stamp,

Down the hard granite rock,

With the snowflakes falling fair

Like an army in the air

Of white-winged angels leaving

Their heavenly, homes, half grieving,

And half glad to drop down kindly upon earth so bare:

With a snort and a bellow

Tossing manes dun and yellow,

Red and roan, black and gray,

In their fierce merry play,

Though the sky is all leaden and the earth all dumb—

Down the noisy cattle come!

Throned on the mountain

Winter sits at ease:

Hidden under mist are those peaks of amethyst

That rose like hills of heaven above the amber seas.

While crash, crash, crash,

Through the frozen heather brown,

And dash, dash, dash,

Where the ptarmigan drops down

And the curlew stops her cry

And the deer sinks, like to die—

And the waterfall's loud noise

Is the only living voice—

With a plunge and a roar

Like mad waves upon the shore,

Or the wind through the pass

Howling o'er the reedy grass—

In a wild battalion pouring from the heights unto the plain,

Down the cattle come again!