The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd Centenary Edition. With a Memoir of the Author, by the Rev. Thomas Thomson ... Poems and Life. With Many Illustrative Engravings [by James Hogg] |
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 | The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd |  |
Amid those scenes the youth was bred,
Where nature's eye is stern and dread;
'Mid forests dark, and caverns wild,
And mountains above mountains piled,
Whose hoary summits, tempest-riven,
Uprear eternal snows to heaven.
In Cumbria's dells he too had staid,
Raving like one in trance that's laid,
Of things which Nature gave not birth;
Of heavenly damsels born of earth;
Of pestilence and charnel den;
Of ships and seas, and souls of men:
A moon-struck youth, by all confest,
The dreamer of the watery west.
His locks were fair as sunny sky;
His cheek was ruddy, bright his eye;
His speech was like the music's voice
Mixed with the cataract's swaying noise;
His harp-strings sounded wild and deep,
With lulling swell and lordly sweep.
Where nature's eye is stern and dread;
'Mid forests dark, and caverns wild,
And mountains above mountains piled,
Whose hoary summits, tempest-riven,
Uprear eternal snows to heaven.
In Cumbria's dells he too had staid,
Raving like one in trance that's laid,
Of things which Nature gave not birth;
Of heavenly damsels born of earth;
Of pestilence and charnel den;
Of ships and seas, and souls of men:
A moon-struck youth, by all confest,
The dreamer of the watery west.
His locks were fair as sunny sky;
His cheek was ruddy, bright his eye;
His speech was like the music's voice
Mixed with the cataract's swaying noise;
His harp-strings sounded wild and deep,
With lulling swell and lordly sweep.
| The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd | |