University of Virginia Library

How beautiful upón the mountains, Lord,
Is Earth, thy world, how beautiful and grand!
Ofttimes with firm unwearied foot I clomb
The old grey Ben, whose peak serene look'd down
In glory on the light careering clouds
That swept the nearer heights; but never fill'd
My wondering eye such pomp of various view
As now, from thy storm-shatter'd brow, Ben More.
How fearful from this high sharp-riven rim
To look down thy precipitous forehead seam'd
With scars from countless storms, whence to the plain
In long grim lines the livid ruin falls,
And think how with a touch the involving blast
From the rude North might seize such thing as I,
And whirl me into dust in that black glen,
Sown with destruction! But such danger now
Touches not me, when in her gentle mood
Nature, all robed in light, and shod with peace,
Upon the old foundations of her strength
Sits like a queen. How glorious in the West
The sheen of ocean lies, the boundless breadth
Of gleaming waves that girdle in the globe
With their untainted virtue, strangely cut
By rocky terraces projecting far
In measured tiers, and long-drawn sprawling arms
Of huge-slabbed granite huddled into knobs,
And studded, far as the rapt eye can reach,
With isle and islet sown in sportive strength,
Even as the sky with stars—the sandy Coll
Tiree-tway-parted, and the nearer group
Of Ulva, Gometra, and Lunga's isle,
And the flat Pladda, and the steep Cairnburg,
Where erst the Norseman, monarch of the main,
His sea-girt castle kept; and stout Maclean
Cromwell's harsh might defied, and planted proud
The flag of Charles, and on the ill-starred clans
Brought loss and harm, and crown'd authority's
Retributive mace. But chiefly, thy dark mass
Enchains my view, in pillared beauty rare,
World-famous Staffa, by the dædal hand
Of Titan Nature piled in rhythmic state,
A fane for gods, and with the memory wreathed
Of Fingal, and the ancient hero-kings
Whom Ossian sang to the wild ringing notes
Of his old Celtic harp, when Celtic songs
Were mighty in the land, and stirred the soul
Of generous clanship in the men who strode
Their native hills with pride, a prosperous race,
Now few and poor by Saxon lords controlled,
Shorn of their glens, and dwindling fast away
Into a name. Nor less thy old grey line,
Iona, holds my gaze, where late I trod
The grave of kings, and by the figured cross
Stood reverent, raised by grateful piety
To the adventurous Saint, who launched his bark
From Erin's clerkly shore, nor looked behind,
Till he had made that harsh grey rock a school
For gentleness and tenderness and truth
And Gospel charms to tame mistempered souls
Through all the savage North. Hence veering round
Southward, Cantire's long arm, and Islay's heights
And lofty Jura's towering tops stand out
Majestic, and the quaint green-vested knolls
Of sheep-cropped Lorn, and Oban's quiet bay
Beloved of boats. And with more distant sweep
Eastward the strong sky-cleaving Grampians rise
From Arroquhar's heights to Cruachan's shapely peaks
And Buchaill's fair green cone, and thy huge bulk
Broad-breasted Nevis, and the mighty host
Of granite battlements that look sternly out
On savage Skye, and with her stiffly bear
The cuffs and buffets of the strong-armed blast
From the still-vexed Atlantic, mother of rains.
These be thy ramparts, Scotland, these the fence
Which Nature raised, to keep thy children free
From the invading Roman, and the pride
Of power aggressive. O! how lovely sleeps
The Sun upon each soft green-mantled glen,
By those grim bulwarks shielded, where the smoke
From lonely hut in odorous birchen bower
Signs the abode of men, the healthful home
Whence breezy Scotland sends her hardy sons
Far-venturing o'er the globe, to win much gold,
And fair approval, and high-throned command,
And all that Earth, a willing tribute, yields
To patient thought, strong will, prompt hand, and grasp
Tenacious. Nor the fervid spirit here
Fails, that beneath a cool impassive front
Nurses the sacred flame, which bursts with power
From Caledonian pulpits, strong to wake
The sting of conscience in lethargic souls
Long drugged to drowsy dullness, or enthralled
By base convention.

But I feel the keen
Uncustomed temper of the thin clear air
On this dry peak, where no hot steams are bred,
Creep with a gradual chillness through my frame;
And I must leave thy tale, thou mighty Ben,
Half sung: nor mine, in sooth, the learned skill
To chronicle the story of thy birth
Portentous, then when God's high call redeemed
The elements from chaos, and made Earth
Start from the seas, and bade the mountains rise
With giant fronts star-threatening, and deep glens
Sundered from glens, and mighty plains from plains
Remotely cast, abode with skill prepared
By toilsome Nature's patient alchemy
For man, proud flower and fruitage of her growth.
These grey-blue rocks in shattered fragments strewn
Upon thy aged crown, if they could speak,
Would tell a tale that science tempts in vain
With many a lofty guess, and name the hour
When the same chemic fire that smelts the bowels
Of hot Vesuvius, 'neath her rocky ribs
Mother of fertile ashes, heaved thy cones
From the tremendous depths of boiling seas
With subterranean thunders terrible,
And tremulous quakings of the tortured Earth
In her primeval throes; and say what tribes
Of monsters then first crawled in slimy beds
Unshapely, or with hideous flapping vans
Clove the thick air, and glared with great round eyes
Through the gross mists, that from the labouring Earth
Rose feverous. Thus stirred by Titan force
Sprang proud Ben More to being, what long space
Of centuried ages, ere sire Adam first
Greeted with glad surprise the genial day
I know not, nor much reck. Enough that here,
Last product of the slow-creating years,
Victors we stand, upon so vast a stage,
Where human work well linked to work divine
Creates new wonders daily; I'm content.
Let others probe the immense of Possibles
With proud conjectures, stamping with the seal
Of sacred truth each darling notion bred
Of green conceit, and plumed with windy pride;
Such fair fantastic triumphs I forego,
Sober to seek, and diligent to do
My human work in this my human plot
Of God's vast garden, all my joy to pluck
The noisome weeds, and rear the fragrant rose,
Not quarreling with its thorn.—Now fare thee well
Thou far-viewed Ben! and may the memoried pomp
Of thy great grandeur make my smallness great,
That in the strait and choking times of life
I still may wear thy presence in my soul,
And walk as in a kingly hall, hung round
With living pictures from the proud Ben More
Monarch of Mull, the fairest isle that spreads
Its green folds to the Sun in Celtic seas.