Minstrels Of The Border
Between red ezlarbanks, that frightful scowl,
Fringed with grey hazel, roars the mining Roull;
Where Turnbulls once, a race no power could awe,
Lined the rough skirts of stormy Rubieslaw.
Bold was the chief from whom their line they drew,
Whose nervous arm the furious bison slew,
The bison fiercest race of Scotia's breed,
Whose bounding course outstripp'd the red deer's speed
By hunters chafed encircled on the plain,
He frowning shook his yellow lion mane,
Spurned with black hoof in bursting rage the ground,
And fiercely toss'd his moony horns round
On Scotia's lord he rushed with lighting speed,
Bent hi his strong neck, to toss the startled steed;
His arms robust the hardy hunter flung
Around his bending horns and upward rung,
With writhing force his neck retorted round,
And roll'd the panting monster on the ground,
Crush'd with enormous strength his bony skull;
And courtiers hail'd the man who turned the bull.
John Leydon
Thanks to Alan Turnbull who forwarded a copy of this to me.
Scottish poet and orientalist, born in Denholm, Roxburghshire, the son
of a farmer. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University and in 1798
was licensed as a preacher. He wrote a book on European settlements in
Africa (1799) and helped Sir Walter Scott to gather materials for his
Border Minstrelsy, his translations and poems in the Edinburgh
Magazine attracted attention. In 1803 he sailed for India as assistant
surgeon at Madras, travelled widely in the east, acquired 34 languages
and translated the gospels into 5 of them. He accompanied Lord Minto as
interpreter to Java and died of fever at Batavia. His ballads have
taken a higher place than his longer poems, especially Scenes of
Infancy (1803); his dissertation on Indo-Chinese languages is also well
known.