With stern a-droop, a "dowie chiel,"

I see him lugged at Beauty's heel,

A captive bound on Fashion's wheel,

Down Bond Street's aisle,

Far from his land of cairn and creel

In grey Argyle.

I wonder if in dreams he goes

Afar from streets and kindred woes,

A-rabbiting with eager nose

And strenuous paw

In birch-woods where the west wind blows

By banks of Awe;

And if his slumbers take him back

To trail the mountain-fox's track,

In corries of the shifting wrack

Where one may spy

Old Cruachan's twin Titan stack

Heaved to the sky;

Or, boudoir-bred degenerate,

If ne'er he knew the nobler state,

The birk-clad brae, the roaring spate,

The tod's dark lair,

Too spiritless to grin at Fate

Or greatly care.

And better this, perhaps you'd say,

Than break his heart for yesterday,

Uneasy in the dreams that stray

Where lost trails stretch—

Well, he's my pity either way,

Poor little wretch!