O, sweet to Heaven the maiden's prayer, And the sigh that heaves a bosom sae fair! And dear to Heaven the words of truth, And dear to the viewless forms of air, The minds that kyth as the body fair! “O, bonny Kilmeny! free frae stain, And tell of the signs you shall shortly see; Of the times that are now, and the times that shall be." They lifted Kilmeny, they led her away, The fountain of vision, and fountain of light : Then deep in the stream her body they laid, That her youth and beauty never might fade; And the angels shall miss them travelling the air. But lang, lang after baith night and day, When the sun and the world have elyed away; When the sinner has gane to his waesome doom. Kilmeny shall smile in eternal bloom!" They bore her away she wist not how, For she felt not arm nor rest below; But so swift they wained her through the light, "Twas like the motion of sound or sight; They seemed to split the gales of air, And yet nor gale nor breeze was there. In moment seen, in moment gone. O, never vales to mortal view Appeared like those o'er which they flew ! The lowermost vales of the storied heaven; They bore her far to a mountain green, To see what mortal never had seen; And they seated her high on a purple sward, Far swifter than wind, or the linked flame. She saw a sun on a summer sky, And clouds of amber sailing bye; A lovely land beneath her lay, And that land had glens and mountains gray; And marled seas, and a thousand isles; Like magic mirrors, where slumbering lay For there they were seen on their downward plain In winding lake and placid firth, Little peaceful heavens in the bosom of earth. Kilmeny sighed and seemed to grieve, For she found her heart to that land did cleave; She saw the corn wave on the vale, She saw the deer run down the dale; She saw the plaid and the broad claymore, And the brows that the badge of freedom bore; And she thought she had seen the land before. She saw a lady sit on a throne, The fairest that ever the sun shone on! A lion licked her hand of milk, And she held him in a leish of silk; |