University of Virginia Library

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE BARONESS BURDETT COUTTS.

High-fortuned lady, bountiful and kind,
Whom to behold is to be touched with good,
Whom in her proud heart England holds enshrined,
Pure type of noblest Christian womanhood!
As a poor child from grassy down may cull
A wilding bloom on which a thronèd queen
Shall smile, and justly deem more beautiful
Than all the stars that gem the courtly scene;
So thou in thy great march of gracious deeds,
And loving triumphs which subdue all foes,
Slight not the poet; though for human needs
His empty hand no healing bounty shows,
His soulful songs do scatter fruitful seeds
On breezy wing, whence godlike virtue grows.

IONA.

THE VOYAGE OF COLUMBA.

THE DEATH OF COLUMBA.

SONNETS.

I.
THE TOURISTS.

What brought them here across the briny pool,
A motley train of high and low degree,
Grave seniors, girls whose blue eyes flash with glee,
White-collar'd priests, and boys uncaged from school?
I know not—happy if themselves can tell;
No sights are here to trap the vulgar eye,
No dome whose gilded cross invades the sky,
No palace where wide-sceptred Cæsars dwell.
An old grey chapel on an old grey beach,
Grey waste of rocks unpictured by a tree,
And far as hungry vision's range can reach,
The old grey mist upon the old grey sea:
These shows for sense; but the deep truth behind
They only know who read the mind with mind.

II.
THE ROYAL SAINT.

Praise me no Cæsars, Alexanders, all
Who whet sharp swords to reap great names in story,
Napoleons, Fredericks, men who fill the hall
Of fame with echoes which the French call glory!
True glory he reap'd with his saintly band
Who fled from pomp of courts and flash of spears,
To win lost souls on this storm-batter'd strand,
With loving venture, prayers, and precious tears.
No herald shrill'd sharp fear his path before,
No wasteful fire made deserts where he came,
No trail of victories sign'd his march with gore,
No dinsome triumph peal'd his dreaded name;
But shod with peace, and wing'd with fervour, he
Unlock'd all hearts; for Love gave him the key.

III.
THE LORD'S DAY IN IONA.

Pure worshipper, who on this holy day
Would'st shake thee free from soul-encrusting cares,
And to the great Creator homage pay
In some high fane most worthy of thy prayers,
Go not where sculptured tower or pictured dome
Invites the reeking city's jaded throngs,
Some hoar old shrine of Rhine-land or of Rome,
Where the dim aisle the languid hymn prolongs;
Here rather follow me, and take thy stand
By the grey cairn that crowns the lone Dun Ee,
And let thy breezy worship be the grand
Old Bens, and old grey knolls that compass thee,
The sky-blue waters, and the snow-white sand,
And the quaint aisles far-sown upon the sea.

IV.
MOONLIGHT.

Thou mystic moon that o'er the dim grey sound
Ray'st forth a yellow stream of thin cold light,
If aught thou hast of knowledge more profound
That told might profit bring to mortal wight,
Tell me: if not, why should I rack my wit
To shape me what thou art, or whither bound,
Or what strange souls, for fleshly coil unfit
Find a meet lodgment on thy spotted round?
Dream dreams who will beneath the glimmering moons,
And commune with dim ghosts that flit about,
I have no brains to waste on hazy runes,
That being read but stir more doubtful doubt;
Shine on me, Sun! beneath thy clear strong ray
To live and work is all the bliss I pray.

V.
THE BOULDER.

Whenoe comest thou? The rest are black, but thou
Art rough and red as any Roy MacGregor,
And show'st as strangely on this spot, I vow,
As in white Washington a sooty nigger!
Say, wert thou roll'd o'er from the ruddy Ross
By Noah's flood, when God was wroth with men,
Or, when the giants played at pitch and toss
Wert thou the counter for their gambling then?
I know not: but what men who read the rocks
Propound, that Nature in her crude display
Of Titan strength with blocks high-heap'd on blocks
Made glorious sport, before Sire Adam's day,
May well be true; and, when the young sun shone,
Some travelling iceberg dropped this mighty stone.

VI.
THE DISAPPOINTED TOURIST.

And is this all? And I have seen the whole,
Cathedral, chapel, nunnery, and graves!
'Tis scantly worth the tin, upon my soul,
Or the long travel through the tumbling waves!
There's nothing now, but to sit down and smoke
A pipe on this grey channel's shelving brink.
“There you are right,” quoth I, to him who spoke,
“Not much is here to see, but much to think;
If you'll but sit and read the old monk's book,
Making the shifting shows of time your theme,
And through the haze of centuries brooding look
Till cunning Fancy shape the featured dream,
Then learn what men served God in this lone nook
Nobly, without gas, newspapers, or steam.”

MULL.

A PSALM OF BEN MORE.

THE DUKE'S RETREAT.

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.

THE RUINED CLACHAN.

SKYE.

BLAVEN.

Blow wildly blasts round Blaven's jagged crown,
And through sheer-yawning rifts
Whistle and shriek, while the swift Cloud swoops down,
And like a wild beast lifts
Wrathful his sweeping tail! Scowl, Blaven, scowl
Black as black hell, and, while
Deep in the cauldroned corry tempests growl,
With thy gigantic pile
Stand firm, and harshly seamed with gritty scars
Thy stern-indented face,
Display, defiant of all windy wars
With savage grim grimace,
While countless winters roll. I can rejoice
Where battling blasts increase,
And from the harsh bray of the tempest's voice
Can syllable sweet peace.
To-morrow, when the storm's hot puffing fit
Hath blown itself to rest,
A little child leading a lamb might sit
Harmless upon thy crest.
Oft have I seen Coruisk's dark-rounded lake,
That, like a hell-pot lies
Brewing commotion, sudden radiance take
From the discurtained skies,
And like a cushioned and a cradled thing
With beauty dimpled o'er,
Lie wreathed in lazy smiles, feeble to fling
One ripple to the shore.
There is a soul in Nature that delights
In peace, and peaceful moods,
Which still she finds from every storm that smites
The Bens, or shakes the woods;
A Sabbath tune she hath which most she loves,
And to herself doth sing
Secure, behind the crash of rended groves
And clang of winter's wing.
Such Sabbath tune the wise man's heart doth know
Through all the week day din,
And raptured hears the heavenly cadence flow
Of angel songs within,
What time Rebellion sets the state ajar
And Chaos conquers Law,
And on life's squandered fountains hungry War
Engluts his tiger-maw.
Terrific now the rainful power streams down
And with tremendous flail
Lashes thy battered ribs, and rifted crown,
In adamantine mail
Prodigious cased: the sudden torrent swells
Huge from its birth, and pours
With arrowy force into the sounding dells
Thy ruin's crumbled stores
Precipitous, and spreads the plain below
With slime and fertile dust,
Thy spoil, the soil for gentle life to grow
From thy obdurate crust.
Thus the harsh-blustering storm prepares the path
For plough and peaceful spade,
And hard-faced Blaven snorting in his wrath,
A genial bed hath made,
Where herbs shall spring, and delicate hands shall bind
The various-painted flower,
And children play, and old men walk, and find
Rest in the odorous bower.
These be Thy wonders, Lord, to pondering heart
In storm and cloud revealed,
Perpetual miracle, prolific art,
From sceptic wit concealed;
These shew to me, while humbly I would trace
Through rich-confounding maze
Thy reasoned plan, and with the angelic race
Mingle weak human praise,
To Him who sits supreme in righteous state
Above man's partial mood,
And worketh peace from storm, and love from hate;
And all He doth is good.

ORKNEY.

THE OLD MAN OF HOY.

THE DEATH OF HACO.

STENNIS.
I.

Here on the green marge of the wrinkled lake
Far-winding snake-like, north, south, east, and west,
From these grey stones thy Sabbath sermon take,
And in the lap of hoary memory rest!
Who framed the cirque, who dug the moat, who sleeps
'Neath the soft silence of the old green mound
I shun to ask: Time, the stern warder, keeps
The key of dateless secrets underground.
This only know, when early man appeared,
Scouring the brown heaths of these wind-swept isles,
He had both thought and thews, and proudly reared
These gaunt recorders of his brawny toils.
Like him be thou; and let thy work proclaim
Thy strength, when Time forgets to spell thy name.

STENNIS.
II.

These old grey stones, what are they?—pillars reared
By men who lived and died in Orkney land,
Long ere the footsteps shod with peace appeared,
To plant the Cross on this surf-beaten strand;
Pillars that preach high thought and mightful hand
Of men that bravely through grim ocean steered,
And stoutly followed what they proudly planned
Through sweat and blood, nor from their purpose veered.
What men?—Celt or the Teut?—I nothing care,
My loves are with the living, not the dead;
But for strong men who knew to do and dare
I drop the loyal tear and bow the head.
Let gentle moons glide o'er the dumb grey stones
That guard their graves!—I would not vex their bones.

MAESHOW.

SHETLAND

BURRA FIORD.

ARGYLLSHIRE.

GLENCOE.

A HISTORICAL BALLAD.

I.

II.

But one there was whose eye that night
No peaceful slumber knew,
Or, if he slept, he dreamt of blood,
And woke by Coe's far-sounding flood,
To make his dreaming true.
A Campbell was he, of a hated clan,
—God's curse be on his name!—
Who to Macdonald's goodly glen
On traitor's errand came.
He had the old man's niece to wife,
(A love that should have buried strife,)
And shook his hand for faithful proof,
And slept beneath his friendly roof;
And he that night had shared the mirth
Around the old man's friendly hearth,
And, wise in devil's art,
Had laughed and quaffed, and danced and sung,
And talked with honey on his tongue,
And murder in his heart.
And now, to buy a grace from power
And men the slaves of the venal hour,
Or with the gust of blood to sate
A heart whose luxury was hate,
His hand was on the whetted knife
That thirsts to drink the old man's life;
And soon the blood shall flow,
From which the curse shall grow,
That since the world to sin began
Pursues the lawless-handed man;
And false Glen Lyon's traitor name
Shall live, a blazing badge of shame,
While memory links the crimson crime,
The basest in the book of Time,
With Campbell and Glencoe.

III.

'Tis five o'clock i' the morn; of light
No glimmering ray is seen,
And the snow that drifted through the night
Shrouds every spot of green.
Not yet the cock hath blown his horn,
But the base red-coated crew
Creep through the silence of the morn
With butcher-work to do.
And now to the old man's house they came,
Where he lived in the strength of his proud old name,
A brave unguarded life;
And now they enter the old oak room,
Where he lay, all witless of his doom,
In the arms of his faithful wife;
And through the grace of his hoary head,
As he turned him starting from his bed,
They shot the deadly-missioned lead,
And reaved his purple life;
Then from the lady, where she lay
With outstretched arms in blank dismay,
They rove the vest, and in deray
They flung her on the floor;
And from her quivering fingers tore
With their teeth the rare old rings she wore;
Then haled her down the oaken stair
Into the cold unkindly air,
And in the snow they left her there,
Where not a friend was nigh,
With many a curse, and never a tear,
Like an outcast beast to die.

IV.

And now the butcher-work went on
Hotly, hotly up the glen;
For the order was given full sharply then
The lion to slay with the cubs in his den,
And never a male to spare;
And the king's own hand had signed the ban,
To glut the hate of the Campbell clan,
And the spite of the Master of Stair.
From every clachan in long Glencoe
The shriek went up, and the blood did flow
Reeking and red on the wreathèd snow.
Every captain had his station
On the banks of the roaring water,
Watching o'er the butchered nation
Like the demons of the slaughter.
Lindsay raged at Invercoe,
And laid his breathless twenty low;
At Inveruggen, Campbell grim
Made the floor with gore to swim—
Nine he counted in a row
Brothered in a bloody show,
And one who oft for him had spread
The pillow 'neath his traitor head,
To woo the kindly rest.
At Auchnachoin stern Barker pressed
The pitiless work with savage zest,
And on the broad mead by the water
Heaped ten souls in huddled slaughter.
The young man blooming in his pride,
The old man with crack'd breath,
The bridegroom severed from his bride,
And son with father side by side,
Lie swathed in one red death;
And Fire made league with Murder fell
Where flung by many a raging hand,
From house to house the flaming brand
Contagious flew; and crackling spar
And crashing beam, make hideous jar,
And pitchy volumes swell.
What horror stalked the glen that day,
What ghastly fear and grim dismay,
No tongue of man may tell;
What shame to Orange William's sway,
When Murder throve with honours decked,
And every traitor stood erect,
And every true man fell!

V.

'Tis twelve o'clock at noon; and still
Heavily, heavily on the hill
The storm outwreaks his wintry will,
And flouts the blinded sun;
And now the base red-coated crew,
And the fiends in hell delight to view
The sanguine slaughter done.
But where be they, the helpless troop,
Spared by red murder's ruthless swoop—
The feeble woman, the maiden mild,
The mother with her sucking child,
And all who fled with timely haste
From hissing shot, and sword uncased?
Hurrying from the reeking glen,
They are fled, some here, some there;
Some have scrambled up the Ben
And crossed the granite ridges bare,
And found kind word and helping hand
On Appin's green and friendly strand;
Some in the huts of lone Glenure
Found kindly care and shelter sure,
And some in face of the tempest's roar,
Behind the shelving Buchailmore,
With stumbling foot did onward press
To thy Ben-girdled nook; Dalness;
And some huge Cruachan's peak behind
Found a broad shield from drift and wind,
And warmed their frozen frames at fires
Kindled by friendly Macintyres.
But most—O Heaven!—a feeble nation,
Crept slowly from the mountain station;
The old, the sickly, and the frail,
Went blindly on with straggling trail,
The little tender-footed maid,
The little boy that loved to wade
In the clear waters of the Coe,
Ere blood had stained their amber flow—
On them, ere half their way was made,
The night came down, and they were laid,
Some on the scaurs of the jaggèd Bens,
Some in black bogs and stony glens,
Faint and worn, till kindly Death
Numbed their limbs, and froze their breath,
And wound them in the snow.
And there they lay with none to know,
And none with pious kind concern
To honour with a cross or cairn
The remnant of Glencoe.
And on the hills a curse doth lie
That will not die with years;
And oft-times 'neath a scowling sky,
Through the black rent, where the torrent grim
Leaps 'neath the huge crag's frowning rim,
The wind comes down with a moan and a sigh;
And a voice, like the voice of a wail and a cry,
The lonely traveller hears,
A voice, like the voice of Albyn weeping
For the sorrow and the shame
That stained the British soldier's name,
When kingship was in butchers' keeping,
And power was honour's foe;
Weeping for scutcheons rudely torn,
And worth disowned and glory shorn,
And for the valiant-hearted men
That once were mighty in the glen
Of lonely bleak Glencoe.

SONNETS.

I
KING'S HOUSE INN.

Fair are the trees whose random tresses fling
Rich grace on the green steeps of Ballachulish;
But King's House Inn, though you may deem it foolish,
And its bleak moor, my wilful Muse will sing.
For why? I love the torrent's savage din,
The giant-trailing mist, the snorting Ben,
The wind-swept heath, the long, deer-sheltering glen,
The still black tarn, and far-up-thundering linn.
And here erect with majesty severe
The Buchail More upshoots his Titan cone;
I stand and look and gaze on Him alone,
As if no other mighty Ben were near,
And hear the pewits cry, and the wind blow
Notes of shrill wail up from the steep Glencoe!

II
MOONLIGHT AT KING'S HOUSE.

O for the touch that smote the psalmist's lyre,
When the great beauty of the world he saw,
And sang His praise, instinct with holy awe,
Who rides the whirlwind, and who reins the fire!
But not alone proud Lebanon's fulgent face
Hath power the eye of trancèd seer to draw;
Here, too, in Grampian land God rules by law,
Which clothes the awfullest forms in loveliest grace.
The placid moon, the huge sky-cleaving Ben,
The moor loch glancing in the argent ray,
The long white mist low-trailing up the glen,
The hum of mighty waters far away,
All make me wish that worthy words would come;
But all I find is—worship, and be dumb!

III
TO AN OLD LEAFLESS TREE ON THE MOOR, NEAR KING'S HOUSE.

Poor wreck of the old forest, gaunt and grim,
No leafy fan, no soft green shade is thine,
But thou hast charms will stir a rhymer's whim
To deck thy ruin with a random line.
Where be thy brothers? I have seen them show
Their prostrate roots beneath long-centuried peat
Mile after mile, where nothing now will grow
Verdant, for eye to love or mouth to eat.
But thou alone dost stand, like some old creed,
Erect, to show what price it had before,
When men believed it had a power indeed,
To soothe each sorrow, and to cleanse each sore;
Or, like a statesman by the moving time
Deserted, in his dry old strength sublime.

IV
THE BUCHAILL ETIVE.

Thou lofty shepherd of dark Etive glen,
Tall Titan warder of the grim Glencoe,
I clomb thy starward peak not long ago,
And call thee mine, and love thee much since then.
Oft have I marvelled, if mine eye had been
Strange witness to Creation's natal hour,
How wondrous then had showed the flaming scene
When out of seething depths thy cone with power
Was shot from God. But now upon thy steep
Fair greenness sleeps on old secure foundations,
And on thee browze the innocent-bleating sheep
And timorous troops of the high-antlered nations;
And I am here, Time's latest product, Man,
To work thy will, O Lord, and serve thy stately plan.

SONG OF BEN CRUACHAN.

THE ASCENT OF CRUACHAN.

SONNETS.

I
ON THE MONUMENT TO NELSON AT TAYNUILT.

Stranger, if thou hast wondering seen the grey
Huge-planted stones on Sarum's breezy downs,
Where once the Druid reigned with awful sway
Above the might of croziers and of crowns,
See here their antitype—a crude block raised
By sweatful smelters on this wooded strand
To him, whose valour, like a meteor, blazed
O'er the wide ocean. With more curious hand
Sculptor and mason oft did league their skill
To memorize his name; but this rude stone,
Perched in his unhewn ruggedness alone,
Stands, a stout witness of heroic will,
In face of thee, fair Cruachan, and all
Thy subject Bens, and Heaven's blue vaulted hall.

II
BEN CRUACHAN IN A DARK EVENING.

As a fair mountain when the day hath run
His course, and scanty stars are faintly seen,
Swathes him in folds of sombre mantle dun,
Shorn of the purple glories and the green;
So a fair lady—saddest of sad sights—
Who yields her humour to a peevish whim,
Casts out the radiant Phœbus, and for him
Brings in a devil, who blows out all the lights.
O, if ye knew, all dames with lovely faces,
How much ye mar your beauty with your spleen,
You'd covet more than finest silks and laces
The spirit-power that paints the fleshly screen!
Manners are masks; but keep the fountain bright,
And thy whole body shall be full of light.

III
JOHN BRIGHT AT TAYNUILT.

(I).

Sayst thou?—and he was truly seated here
That stout broad-breasted, firmly-planted man,
Who with brave heart, blithe look, and jovial cheer,
To victory led the democratic clan.
There are who deem there is no truth in history,
Lies count by hundredweights, and truth by grains;
But I'll speak plainly out and say, the mystery
Lies only in their lack of sense and brains;
This fact I know, by one strong word, REFORM,
Bright hotly stirred the people's fretful mind,
Till Whig and Tory grew with envy warm,
And spurred with him, not to be left behind;
Some served their party bravely, some betrayed,
And all danced well as this proud piper played.

IV.
JOHN BRIGHT AT TAYNUILT.

(II).

What? lodged he here and sat in that same chair,
The thunder-tongued, high-purposed democrat;
He was an honest man, I'll stand for that—
And where he sate I'll sit well seated there.
No doubt his hand a seething broth did brew,
Perhaps too strong for old John Bull's digestion,
But 'twas a needful purge beyond all question
He deemed, life's crazy framework to renew.
If he was wrong, and history tells no tales,
Then who was right, if false then who was true,
When Whig and Tory spread their rival sails
To catch sweet favour from the gale he blew?
All sinned: but they transgressed all honest rules
Who knocked the workman down, then made bread with his tools.

OBAN.

HUMOURS OF HIGHLAND WEATHER.

A SEPTEMBER BLAST IN OBAN.

By Heaven! the house is rocking like a ship;
The strong trees bend like osiers, and the sea
Flings long white scourges forth, with truculent glee,
And rides with madded speed high-armed, to whip
The quaking land! O what an altered theme
From yesterday, when in the breezeless glen
The sear leaf dropt, and high on Cruachan Ben
The white cloud rested like a saintly dream.
Such are thy changes, universal Lord,
Fearful to feeble man! but thou art strong,
And Nature still rings forth a jubilant song,
Where thy sure hand doth sweep the varied chord.
Our house may reel; but, as no storm had been,
The big round globe rolls through the blue Serene.

THE LAST WEEK OF SEPTEMBER IN OBAN.

Dear love, what change in the fair face of things
Since first this peaceful green retreat we knew,
When every sun shone through a lovelier blue,
And every zephyr flapped more fragrant wings!
And thou didst sit upon the turfy bank
While thy green parrot wandered round thy neck,
Drinking in beauty, where the day-god sank
In golden soft repose without a speck.
But now the rainful blast comes whistling by,
The black-maned clouds, like Furies on the wing
Skir past; the sea growls up with bristling looks.
What remedy?—thank heaven the cure is nigh,
Heap up the logs, and trim the lamp, and bring
Our winter-friends, our long-neglected books.

INVERNESS-SHIRE.

THE LAY OF THE BRAVE CAMERON.

FASSFEARN.

Stout old Simplicity, here I wisely greet
Thy grandeur, and on Cameron's cradle look
Well pleased, heart's brother of the iron duke,
From whom the fulminant Frenchman knew defeat.
No pillared halls were there, no gay saloons,
But a plain low white house that scorned display,
Where thou wert reared as Romans were, when they
Rose from the plough to whip the Volscian loons.
O rare old times in simple manhood schooled,
From which our vauntful age hath vainly swerved,
When they who ruled, like faithful fathers ruled,
And they who served, as trustful children served!
Hence mighty captains grew, and men who bled
As heroes bleed, where dauntless Cameron led.

GLENFINNAN.

THE MONUMENT OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD, AT GLENFINNAN, LOCH SHIEL.

Misfortuned youth, if daring gave a claim,
And splendid hazard to a hero's glory,
Then history knew than thine no nobler story,
In the bright rolls of Greek and Roman fame.
For thou wert bold, and what thy fancy bred,
Of flattering fond conceit thy heart believed;
And they who followed where thy bright dream led,
Dashed into hopeless strife, and were deceived.
For thou lacked wisdom, and thy speed outran
Thy strength; strong trees take longest time to grow;
Wishes have wings; but in the state of man,
Deeds creep behind with limping pace and slow.
Thrice-hapless prince, for thy bold brilliant whim,
Thy friends must pay in woes that overbrim.

KINLOCH LEVEN.

As when a student toiling with annoy,
Through long dry tomes that tomb the dusty past,
Lights on some gleam of nobleness at last,
He brightens, and his heart leaps up for joy;
So glad was I when from the cheerless hue
Of broad bleak moor, black loch, and swampy fen,
Deep from the rich warm bosom of the glen,
The green Kinloch stept brightly into view.
Happy the chief who in such still retreat,
Nurses the memory of long-centuried sires,
Whose faithful people go with forward feet
Where his eye flashes, and his voice inspires,
Who makes the hills his home, and reigns a king
O'er willing hearts who love his sheltering wing.

KINLOCH MOIDART.

I.

And this is Moidart! in this extreme nook
The Stuart landed, and the Pope has friends,
And the old Faith that swears by church and book,
Stands stiffly here, and neither breaks nor bends;
Like some hoar father of a scattered race,
Vagrants of East and West, a homeless crew,
He only holds the old familiar place,
And the men know him now who always knew.
Not wise is he who vents an angry breath,
'Gainst souls that hang by Europe's hoary creed,
And, for his legs are sound, deals wanton scaith
On the old crutch that helps the limper's speed;
We all must cling to something in our need,
Else helmless tossed through darkness into death.

KINLOCH MOIDART.

II.

“Papists—the Devil!” Nay, good friend, be quiet,
I live to love all things, whose name is Man;
The west wind here may bravely rage and riot,
But spare me curses 'gainst the human clan.
Papists I've known the foremost in the van
Of God's most elect host of golden worth,
And you, poor shell-fish, squirt your spiteful ban
Against the men most like to Christ on earth!
Go to your Bible, Protestant, and learn
On prayerful knees, the one thing needful there;
This found, 'tis matter of most light concern,
What name you go by, or what dress you wear;
Fan in your breast the sacred fire that warms,
And waste no breath in wrangling about forms.

DUMBARTONSHIRE.

EDENDARACH.

A LAY OF LOCH LOMOND.

ROB ROY'S CAVE.

Here lodged Rob Roy; proud kings have palaces,
And foxes holes, and sheep the sheltering fold;
Fish own the pools, and birds the plumy trees;
And stout Rob Roy possessed this granite hold.
Call him not thief and robber: he was born
A hero more than most that wear a star,
And brooked his brawny strength with manly scorn
On fraud and force and falsehood to make war.
In these well-trimmed and well-oiled times a man
Moves part of a machine: but then strong will
Shaped each hard-sinewed life to kingly plan,
And ruled by right of might and law of skill.
When kings were weak, lords false, and lawyers knaves,
Rob Roy saved honest men from being slaves.

ARDLUI: THE PULPIT ROCK.

ROSS-SHIRE.

A PSALM OF LOCH DUICH.

All Nature rests: and, save the hidden hum
Of the clear torrent in the grey ravine
Scooping its hollow way, or the low plash
Of peaceful oars across the lucid lake
Bearing their pious freight to morning church,
No sound is heard. No ripple on the face
Of the quaint-winding, mountain-girdled flood
Disturbs the fair composure of the scene:
No vagrant curl of light slow-wandering cloud
Dapples the blue serene; the mellow slopes
Glow with the russet fern; and up the glen
The green-clad cones and piny-tufted crags
In random grandeur cast, with sharp lines cleave
The softness of the rich autumnal air.
Hark! from the base of that green copsy knoll
The gentle call of the familiar bell
Invites the plaided worshippers to join
The sabbath service solemn and severe
Of Presbyterian piety. Go thou
And worship with them, if so be thy heart
Spontaneous rising to the source of Good
Chime with their hymns, and thy well tutored lips
Spell the dread mysteries of their iron creed
With awful pleasure. But if far from these
Thy spirit dwells, then let thy song ascend
Apart, with mine upon the lonely hills:
God numbers not the heads, but weighs the hearts
Of them that worship. Here nor preacher needs
With gusts of studied passion to upstir
The dull heart's stagnant pool, nor with set styles
To train thy finite mind with blind embrace
To clutch the Infinite; all the vasty world
Sublime, the living temple of his power
Invades thy sense, and occupies thy thought.
There have been fools—no void and vacant souls—
But super-subtle self-confounding wits,
Eager to doubt and studious to deny,
Who in the mighty marvel of his works
Owned not the workman; let such pass; but thou
With open eye and reverent-clinging heart
Worship, and with pure homage of consent
Accept his doings. What He is he shews,
And what he shews interpreted becomes
Thy law, and thy religion; thou art bound
By Him as by the chain that bindeth all.
This the unkempt, untutored savage knew
Ere temples rose, or bell did toll to church,
Or stood the mitred priest with hands upreared
Leading the suppliant pomp, or swelled the chaunt
Of the responsive, rich, clear-throated hymn
From lips of white-stoled boys, and maidens chaste,
To sacred service trained. This with his quick
Fair-shaping fancy the old Greek declared,
When every star that gems the lucent blue,
And every ray that paints the dædal globe,
And every wave that crests the heaving brine,
And the streams bickering from a thousand glens,
And every shadow travelling o'er the hills,
Leapt into Godhead's perfect mould, to feed
His eager lust for worship. This in his watch
Star-canopied the Hebrew shepherd knew
With holier instinct and profounder ken;
This the wild hunter in his hairy tent
Lethargic stretched, or with tempestuous foot
Chasing the ostrich. This the holy seer
Saw lonely-brooding upon Judah's hills,
And nursed the sacred thought within his breast,
Till into manhood panoplied it grew,
And spurned his bosom's narrow bound, and strode
Majestic o'er the world, and captive led
The tribes of men, and awed the hearts of kings.
Thus God in every age, and every clime,
Of his unbounded excellence some part
Or aspect, as their faculty might reach,
Dimly revealed, in various feature typed,
To the uncounted children of his love.
And we, who in these latest ages reap
The fullness of the teaching of all times,
Perched on high platforms of far-circling range,
And forcing earth and sky to yield their necks
Obedient to our yoke of lordly thought,
Shall we, with all our knowing craft, know less
Than the embruted bushman of the source
Whence knowledge comes, and all things knowable,
And rather claim low brotherhood with beasts
That with prone faces crop the foodful ground
Thinking no God?—No fellowship with you
True wisdom claims, ye who with fingering ken
Note the bare outward fact, senseless to feel
The soul that moulds the fact, and makes it be
A speechful sign of God, whose thoughts are worlds,
And in whose life all birth and death, and all
The steps of swift mutation, are but stops
In one harmonious all-involving hymn
Of wonder-working energy divine,
Instinct with reason. Not I, with twinkling lamps
Of science groping in disgodded dens
Of cold unreasoned matter love to pry,
Culling the broken shells, and husks of things
Inert and lifeless, but do gladly stray
On the bright surface and familiar face
Of the broad living world, where every beam
From the great centre of all-nurturing light
Shot earthwards, bears upon its procreant wing
Miraculous virtue, at whose touch Earth's slime
Welters with every reasonable form
Of heaving life, and from the conscious ground
Upsprings the flower in every dainty type
Of measured beauty rare, and undulant woods
With leafy large embroidery outspread,
Work of that sleepless surge of shaping soul
That makes the world a world, and fills the eye
With wonder and delight.—But I will cease,
Lest my fond babblement disturb the calm
And beauty of this place; and evermore,
When Sabbath bells in dingy city toll,
Through smoke, and dusty tramp, and rattling wheels,
And multitudinous roar of crowded life,
I will bethink me of thy pool serene,
Loch Duich, with fair fringe of friendly green,
And gleaming cots, and the low plash far-heard
Of peaceful Sabbath oars, and the quaint grace
Of tufted crag, and vagrant-climbing birch,
And lone Glenshiel, with strong rock-scooping flood
Fenced by green cones, and granite peaks sublime.

TAIN: THE CHAPEL OF SAINT DUTHACH.

SUTHERLANDSHIRE.

BONNIE STRATHNAVER.

CAITHNESS.

JOHN O'GROAT'S HOUSE.

WICK: THE HERRING FISHERY.

O life, O death, O countless multitude
Of things that are, and things that were before,
Of things that die to build up finer food
For things that live on their disruptured store!
From this grey town a thousand-masted fleet,
Helmed by strong men who tread the earth with pride,
Rides forth in full-sailed pomp, to gather meat
From glancing lives that fret the peopled tide.
Thus Nature from her prostrate ruin rears
Her vanquished head, still victor in the strife,
And through progressive deaths in stately tiers
Mounts to the stage which bears the noblest life,
Where vilest loss transformed to splendid gain
Shines glorious; and no force is spent in vain.

PERTHSHIRE.

LOCH RANNOCH.

O'er lone Loch Rannoch's clear far-stretching flood
With gentlest curl the Sabbath breezes creep;
No sound disturbs thy contemplative mood,
Save the meek cry of the far-bleating sheep,
And the low hum of distant waterfall.
Here, on these voiceless banks, if thou can'st keep
Pure Sabbath for thyself, and wisely reap
Harvest of native thought, without the call
Of fervid preacher, I forbid thee not;
God dwelleth not in temples made with hands,
Nor chains His presence to one charmed spot.
But they are wise who kneel in brothered bands
At hallowed stations: where their fathers trod,
Fools will despise the beaten way to God.

LOCH RANNOCH MOOR.

In the lone glen the silver lake doth sleep;
Sleeps the white cloud upon the sheer black hill:
All moorland sounds a solemn silence keep;
I only hear the tiny trickling rill
'Neath the red moss. Athwart the dim grey pall,
That veils the day, a dusky fowl may fly;
But, on this bleak brown moor, if thou shalt call
For men, a spirit will sooner make reply.
Come hither, thou whose agile tongue doth flit
From theme to theme with change of wordy war,
Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit,
But Wisdom whispers truth, when crowds are far.
Come, sit thee down upon this old grey stone;
Men learn to think, and feel, and pray, alone.

AT LOCH ERICHT.

A SONG OF BEN LEDI.

ABERDEENSHIRE.

BRAEMAR:

THE THREE CHURCHES.

BEN MUICDHUI.

O'er broad Muicdhui sweeps the keen cold blast,
Far whirrs the snow-bred, white-winged ptarmigan,
Sheer sink the cliffs to dark Loch Etagan,
And all the mount with shattered rock lies waste.
Here brew ship-foundering storms their force divine,
Here gush the fountains of wild-flooding rivers;
Here the strong thunder frames the bolt that shivers
The giant strength of the old twisted pine.
Yet, even here, on the bare waterless brow
Of granite ruin, I plucked a purple flower,
A delicate flower, as fair as aught, I trow,
That toys with zephyrs in my lady's bower.
So Nature blends her powers; and he is wise
Who to his strength no gentlest grace denies.

THE HIGHLANDER'S LAMENT.

ARRAN.

GLEN ROSA.

GENERAL.

BONNIE BLACKWATER.

HIGHLAND INNS.

THE HIGHLAND MINISTER.

When London brewers track the Scottish deer,
And lords breed sheep, who once commanded men,
Whom do the scanty peoplers of the glen
With faithful love, and service true revere?
I know him well: while lairds beyond the sea
Scatter their gold, and factors rack the glen,
He stands a messenger from God to men,
Sole priest and king, sole friend and father he.
Such ministry God's gospel gave, when first
Love struck the bonds from Sin's enthrallèd slaves,
As here some wreck of kindly care it saves
From grasping hands and hearts with hardness curst.
“Not yours, but you,” the great Apostle said;
Now gain is good, and all things are a trade!

THE HIGHLAND MANSE.

If men were free to take, and wise to use
The fortunes richly strewn by kindly chance,
Then kings and mighty potentates might choose
To live and die lords of a Highland manse.
For why? Though that which spurs the forward mind
Be wanting here, the high-perched glittering prize,
The bliss that chiefly suits the human kind
Within this bounded compass largely lies—
The healthful change of labour and of ease,
The sober inspiration to do good,
The green seclusion, and the stirring breeze,
The working hand leagued with the thoughtful mood;
These things, undreamt by feverish-striving men,
The wise priest knows who rules a Highland glen.

THE LADY WHO LOVES THE HIGHLANDS.

THE BOULDER.

SOLITUDE.

THE SONG OF THE HIGHLAND RIVER.