University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

I.
BEN TEALLADH.

As sits a queen among her maids, so thou,
Ben Tealladh, mid thy cirque of subject hills,
Crowned not with mortal gold, but on thy brow
With deathless verdure fresh from sky-born rills.
Thou fairest vestal of the Western isles,
Hath no bard yet linked thee to famous lays;
And was it left for me to wander miles
And mar thy beauty with imperfect praise?
Come from your dim abodes, all men who pine
In grimy chambers and dark inky dens,
And look, and love this Queen of verdurous Bens!
Trust me, the primal father of our line
Saw no such Ben, from Eden's flowery girth,
To feed his eyes with wonder at his birth.

II.
LOCH BAA.

Lovely Loch Baa, had I, who spend my span
In the hot pressure of a feverish time,
Been born to tell my beads to churchly chime,
When life was tempered to a prayerful plan,
Here I had thatched my hut, secure of peace
By the strong cincture of thy grassy hills,
And by the vow whose chastening virtue kills
Ambition, that makes cankering cares increase;
But sith I am the man I am, and where
The Fate me planted, and the Will divine,
I may but greet thee with a chance-breathed prayer
And seal my homage with one loyal line—
If heaven be fairer than thou art this day
I know not, but with thee I'd rather stay.

III.
LOCH BAA: AGAIN.

“Lovely Loch Baa!” so said I yesterday,
Cradled and curtained by the soft green hills,
As on thy sloping beach I twined my lay
To the low murmur of thy tinkling rills.
But now, O Heavens, what gusty horror swells
Thy face, what blackness crowns thy fretful brow!
And, like a rout of demons from thy dells,
What battling blasts come headlong charging now!
How changed, and yet the same! how strange, and yet
How common! Nature hates perdurant peace,
And in the strife which winds and waves beget
From sweet somniferous sameness finds release;
Then marvel not, nor deem the times ajar,
If Celt with Teut, or Teut with Celt make war!

IV.
FAREWELL TO LOCH BAA.

Farewell, Loch Baa! the summer's gone, and I
Must go with it; thy heavens are dark and drear,
And the sad coronach of the widowed year,
With many a mournful groan and solemn sigh,
Trails through thy glens. Beneath sweet summer skies
Each delicate hue, each fair fine-shadowed form
Lived on thy face; but now the pitiless storm
Rakes thee with gashes, and thy beauty dies.
Farewell! Grief comes to all. I must depart.
Not even the gods may stop the wheels of change;
Thou hast the better half of my poor heart
Which loves thy bound, more than wide Nature's range.
Roll swift, ye murky months, whose cruel law
Takes light from Earth, and me from dear Loch Baa!

V.
BEN GREIG.

Why climb the mountains? I will tell thee why,
And, if my fancy jumps not with thy whim,
What marvel? there is scope beneath the sky
For things that creep, and fly, and walk, and swim.
I love the free breath of the broad-wing'd breeze,
I love the eye's free sweep from craggy rim,
I love the free bird poised at lofty ease,
And the free torrent's far-upsounding hymn;
I love to leave my littleness behind,
In the low vale where little cares are great,
And in the mighty map of things to find
A sober measure of my scanty state,
Taught by the vastness of God's pictured plan
In the big world how small a thing is man!

VI.
MULL WEATHER.

Weather!—why blame the weather? on the mountains
Storm with the sunshine weaves the shifting show,
While from the green braes leap the white-maned fountains
With lusty bicker to the vale below.
I'd have him whipt back to the reeking town,
Lord of some breezeless garret in the mews,
Who ducks for shelter when the rain comes down,
And picks his dainty path with shining shoes.
Not so old Ossian, Celtic bard sublime,
Who loved the floating mist and sailing gloom,
And the swoln ocean-wave's far-murmuring boom,
And in the hall of heroes piled a rhyme,
Which on some battered peak a man shall sing,
High-perched beneath the Eagle's stormy wing.