Robert Williams Buchanan

The Glamour

The hills close round her—everywhere
Strange voices deepen in the air;
The pain, the hope, the agony,
Flash to a sense of mystery;
The shapes of earth and air and skies
Catch glamour in her weary eyes;
Worn with the pain, worn with the pain,
She would lie down, and sleep again!

O LORD my God, draw not Thy hand away—
The sleep-stoure fills my eyes—I feel my grave—
And I would reach a painless end, like those
Thy glamour ne’er hath troubled. I have been
O’er long a shadow on the paths of men,
O’er long a screeching bird in happy bields,
O’er long a haunted wanderer day and night.
Lord, let me die! Lord, let me die! Lord God,
Pity and spare me! Draw Thy hand away!
Thy breath is on me in the mirk, and ah!
I sicken sore, while yonder through the pane
Corpse-candles, blowing blue against the wind,
Flit slowly to the kirkyard, down Glen-Earn.

     What had I done, that Thou should pick me out,
To breathe thy glamour on? I was a lass
Happy and heartsome, till that dreesome day
I walk’d from kirk by moonlight down the glen,
And saw Maccaskill of Craig-Dhonil pass,
Sewn to the middle in his winding-sheet,
And waving hairy arms until I swoon’d;—
And ere a year was run Maccaskill died;
And then I kenn’d I had the bitter gift
My father and my father's father had.
Yet I was young, and felt a kind o’ pride,
To see so far into Thy mysteries,—
To ken when man or wife was doom’d to die;
To see the young life in a lassie’s wame,
Although her snood was whole; to prophesy
Tempests and human losses. Many a man
Then turn’d away; but Kenneth married me—
Kenneth Macdonald, sheep-herd on the hills,
A holy man and kind; and for a time
The glamour came no more, and I was gay,
Feeling the young bairn underneath my breast
Breathe softly with the rocking o’ my heart.
But in the winter gloaming, when the drift
Was thick around the door, and winds were blowing,
And I was lying on the jizzen-bed,
And Jean the howdie wash’d my paps with salt,
I saw a strange thing lying on her knee—
A span-long body in a blood-stain’d sowe—
And scream’d and cried, “Jean, Jean, the bairn will die!”
And so it was. For while old mother slipt
Out to the kitchen lowe, where Kenneth sat,
To drop a cinder through the wee white sark,
The bairn came dead into the chilly mirk;
And in the snowy dawing I beheld 
The span-long body of my sweet first-born,
Wrapt in its sowe, upon the howdie’s knee.

     But Angus lived—my white-faced sickly bairn,
The last I bore; for, ere I rose from bed,
I heard, one gloaming dark, from but the house,
A sound of sawing, hewing with an adze,
Mix’d with a sound of weeping, clapping hands;
And all the bield was empty,—and I knew
A shell was being made for some one near;
And ah! before the moon was full again,
Just as the season of the lambing came,
My bonnie man was sheeted in the house,
And stiff, and cold; and I was left alone,
Shadow’d and sad, with hot tears dropping down
On Angus, pulling feebly at my breast.

     I never bedded with another man,
Never bare wean again; but I could earn
Both food and drink, and all my pride and joy
Was Angus. Lord, he was the bonniest bairn
The sweetest, gentlest, ever wrought in flesh,
To gladden mother’s eyes. The very day
That he was born, I call’d the minister,
Who gave him baptism, that the glamour ne’er
Might come on him or his; and ah! he grew,
Pale like a lily—for this solemn world
O’er gentle; and the glamour brought no fear
To mirk our dwelling. Nay, for many a year,
The eerie light seem’d gone away from me,
For never ghaist or burial cross’d my path,
Corpse-light or wraith. Then Angus on the hills
Grew sheep-herd, like his father, though he lack’d
His father’s fearless heart; and, as he grew,
Turn’d weaker, whiter—bonnie still, but thin
And bloodless; and he lack’d the heart to face
Darkness and danger: ringing of a bell
At midnight, sudden footsteps in the dark,
A hand placed on his shoulder suddenly,
Would strike him down into a swooning fit,
Dreesome to see; and when his eighteenth year
Was o’er, he sometimes sicken’d at my face,
And shiver’d though he knew me. All at once
The glamour came across my Soul again.
One night, while we were seated in the bield,
I heard a wailing come from but the house,
And horror gript me. “Mother!” Angus cried,
Glow’ring full fear’d into my burning eyes,
“What ails thee?” “Wheesht!” I whisper’d; “hear ye nought?”
“Nought!” Angus said. And then I heard a sound
Of groans, and clapping hands; and suddenly
I saw my Angus shrink until he grew
As small as any babe new-born, and turn,
Swift as the fireflaught, to himself again;— 
And while I scream’d, and fell upon his neck,
Weeping, and kissing him, and moaning low,
He sicken’d at my face, and swoon’d away.

     For, though I hid the trouble from my bairn,
Long had he known his mother was a seer,
Whose eyes were troubled by mysterious things;
And every shade he saw upon my face
Distraught him, lest I saw before his path
Mishap or death. My white-faced, fearful bairn!
My drooping Angus, with his soft, wide eyes,
And fluttering mouth! Alone upon the hills,
He trembled—fear’d the lightning and the storm—
Tholed not to lie within the dark alone—
And would have wither’d in his bairndom’s time,
Had I not cheer’d him with a smiling face.

     Lord, thou wert sore upon me! I was lone,
And Angus was my pleasure. I was haunted,
And Angus was my help. Yet, once again,
Thy glamour struck me, and I knew, I knew,
Angus must die. Hard, hard, both day and night,
I tried to cheat myself and hope, and smiled
On Angus, till his heart grew still once more.
But it was all in vain. Thrice Angus shrunk,
Three several gloamings, seated in his chair.
And I kept down my fear, and did not scream;
And oft I heard the wailing in the house,
And sounding of the kirk-bells down Glen-Earn
At midnight. Then I sicken’d and grew thin,
And hunger’d o’er my bairn, and pray’d, and pray’d,—
And what to me was light of sun or star
If Angus went away?

                               . . . It was a night
Quiet and cold. The moon and stars were out,
The moon-dew glittering on the hills. Alone,
I sat, awaiting Angus. It grew late,
And Angus came not; and the low winds blew,
And the clock tick’d, and ah! my heart was dark.
Then, last, I took my cloak, and wander’d forth,
To see if he was coming down the Glen,
And took the cold wet pathway in the moon
Until I reach’d the foot of Cawmock Craig,
And saw the straight rock rise into the lift,
Its side all dark, but on its top the Moon
Shining full bright and chilly. As I stood,
I heard a shout, and saw, far, far above,
A figure dark between me and the lift,
Threading the narrow paths around the Craig
Whence many a man hath fallen and been slain;
And even then—Lord, Lord!—thy glamour dropt
Upon me, and I saw before my face
The wraith of Angus wrapt in bloody sowe
Gliding before me in the ghaistly light.
Shrill as an owl, I screech’d!—and up above
My Angus heard, and sicken’d, and swam round,
And, swooning on the sharp edge of the Craig,
Dash’d downward to his death!—

                                           . . . O bonnie, bonnie
Look’d Angus, lying in his sowe asleep,
Quiet like moonlight on his face, his hair
Kaim’d back and shining round his cold white ears.
And yonder in the cold kirkyard he lies;
And, Lord, I want to slumber at his side,
And cheer him in the darkness of the grave,—
For he was ever fearful, weak, and pale—
A young man with a white bairn’s timorous soul.
And, Lord, I think that Thou at last art kind,
For oft the white wraith, glimmering at my side,
Hath waved its arms, and moan’d, and look’d like me:
And I have watch’d it ever, not afraid,
But sad and smiling; and what dress I wore,
The wraith hath worn; and when I turn’d my gown,
And let the grey hairs hang all down my neck,
The wraith, too, turn’d its gown, and loosed its hair;
And yonder, yonder, yonder, through the pane,
The blue corpse-candles, blowing in the wind,
Flit slowly to the kirkyard, down Glen-Earn.