Now wound the path its dizzy ledge
Around a precipice's edge,
When lo! a wasted female form,
Blighted by wrath of sun and storm, 505
In tattered weeds and wild array,
Stood on a cliff beside the way,
And glancing round her restless eye,
Upon the wood, the rock, the sky,
Seemed naught to mark, yet all to spy. 510
Her brow was wreathed with gaudy broom;
With gesture wild she waved a plume
Of feathers which the eagles fling
To crag and cliff from dusky wing;
Such spoils her desperate step had sought, 515
Where scarce was footing for the goat.
The tartan plaid she first descried,
And shrieked till all the rocks replied;
As loud she laughed when near they drew,
For then the Lowland garb she knew; 520
And then her hands she wildly wrung,
And then she wept, and then she sung--
She sung!--the voice, in better time,
Perchance to harp or lute might chime;
And now, though strained and roughened, still 525
Rung wildly sweet to dale and hill.