O how sanguine your author was, that
After so many bitter heartbreaks
On the rocky road to Love
(sweet Nirvana shared with a special kindred soul),
This would be the Big One,
The dawning of my joyous future,
A future to be enjoyed in togetherness
With the he-man of my dreams,
A charming full-kilted Highland laddie.

I smiled in innocent anticipation
Of what might transpire
As I waited to meet my bonnie Angus
That lovely Scots summer evening
In the beauteous Pass o' Killicrankie -
His selection of such an inconvenient,
Yet spectacularly gorgeous spot,
Reflected what I had come to appreciate
Of his romantic nature, thus boding well
For our first physical encounter.

Although we had not hitherto met
In the full flesh, so to speak,
I felt I knew the dear laddie well,
Having exchanged increasingly amorous emails
On an exclusive dating website
http://brokenhearts-renewed-by-love.co.uk
And the semi-draped digital photo
Made my heart go pit-a-pit-a-pat
And made my knickers drenched,
To put it mildly, dear reader.

And so I waited, heart in my mouth,
By the bridge o'er the Pass o' Killicrankie,
That warm evening last year
And the birds sang a gentle little song:
Tweet-tweet-tweety-tweet
They chirrupped, somewhat unoriginally,
And how my heart was gladdened
By their artless warbling, och aye,
But I knew not what tragedy lay
Just around the proverbial corner.

And then I saw him coming down the path,
Limping gently (I recalled he had mentioned
early on in our electronic correspondence
that one leg was slightly shorter than the other
thanks to an incident involving a rabid Rottweiler)
And, O dear Lord, he was indeed a fine specimen,
Truly a very tasty number indeed
(although at least ten inches shorter
than I had fondly imagined theretofore),
And I knew my prayers had been answered
(yet perhaps not one hundred percent ideally).

We embraced shyly as he rested his shrunken limb
On a conveniently sited large round stone,
As we stood by the bridge looking out o'er
The spectacular Pass o' Killicrankie,
With its tumbling burn in the mighty ravine far below,
And he reached up on tippie-toe
So as to bring his lips up my mine
In order to seal our love, to plight our troth;
Och how my poor wee heart pounded
Like a steam-hammer at full throttle.

But Fate, cruel Fate intervened brutally
And Angus's surgical boot slipped on the aforesaid stone;
Then he fell against the ill-maintained fence
Which inevitably snapped asunder
And my bonnie lad toppled over into the terrible depths
Of the famous Pass o' Killiecrankie,
His arms flailing like semaphore.
O, but I shall ne'er forget his doomed shrieks
As he bounced gaily o'er the granite rocks,
Landing with a fatal plop in the rippling stream
As it ran urgently in the crannies at the bottom
Of the legendary Pass o' Killicrankie.

There's aye a silver lining to this tale
As poor Angus's man-bag still lay on the path
And I quick perusal therein
Suggested I could go for a tasty supper
At the nearest hostelry and have plenty left over
To subscribe to a more explicit dating website
(perhaps one where only the physically perfect
would be allowed to register)
In the hope of better luck next time round;
But the memory of his dying gurgles
In the icy waters of the babbling brook
Coursing through the Pass o' Killiecrankie
Will live with me for all eternity
(well, a week or two at a rough guess anyway).