Was it the cry

 Of a rider riding the night

 Into ashes and dawn,

 With news in his nostrils and fright

 Where his hoof-beats had gone?

 Did the pipes, at “Bonny Dundee,”

 Bid regiments form?

 Did a renegade’s soul get free

 On a wail of the storm?

 Did a flock of wild geese honk

 As they cleared the hill?

 Or only a bittern cronk,

 Then all was still?

 Was it a night stampede

 Of a thousand head?

 I know I shook like a reed

 There on my bed.

 Nameless and void and wild

 Was the fear before me,

59

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