Lays of the Highlands and Islands :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ben Cruachan is king of the mountains,
That gird in the lovely Loch Awe,
Loch Etive is fed from his fountains,
By the stream of the dark-rushing Awe.
With his peak so high,
He cleaves the sky,
That smiles on his old grey crown,
While the mantle green,
On his shoulders seen,
In many a fold flows down.

He looks to the North, and he renders
A greeting to Nevis Ben,
And Nevis, in white snowy splendours,
Gives Cruachan greeting again.
O'er dread Glencoe
The greeting doth go,

And where Etive winds fair in the glen;
And he hears the call,
In his steep North wall,
“God bless thee, old Cruachan Ben!”

When the North winds their forces muster,
And Ruin rides high on the storm,
All calm, in the midst of their bluster,
He stands, with his forehead enorm.
When block on block,
With thundering shock,
Comes hurtled confusedly down,
No whit recks He,
But laughs to shake free
The dust, from his old grey crown.

And while torrents on torrents are pouring
In a tempest of truculent glee,
When louder the loud Awe is roaring,
And the soft lake rides like a sea;
He smiles through the storm,
And his heart grows warm,
As he thinks how his streams feed the plains;

And the brave old Ben
Grows young again,
And swells with enforcèd veins.

For Cruachan is king of the mountains,
That gird in the lovely Loch Awe,
Loch Etive is fed from his fountains,
By the stream of the dark-rushing Awe.
Ere Adam was made,
He reared his head
Sublime o'er the green-winding glen;
And, when flame wraps the sphere,
O'er Earth's ashes shall peer
The peak of the old Granite Ben!