University of Virginia Library

To lone Glen Rosa's rocky dell,
'Neath the sheer side of high Goat-fell,
Where pinnacled cliffs of granite grey,
Huge-piled in savage quaint array,
Cut sharp the sky,
Come whoso shuns the ways of men,
And let him try,
If in this waste and houseless glen,
A temple made for solitude,
There live some charm to touch his mood,
That hungering cries for something good,
To heal his sorrow!

Come thou, who, whirling round and round
In social eddies, dost confound
Through very men the man within thee;
The trick of thought if thou would'st win thee,
Come here, and borrow
From rock, and stream, and lonely dell,
Green fern, and purple heather bell,
What quiet power with them doth dwell,
To heal thy sorrow!

Or art thou one of haughty soul,
Who, when the tide of life ran high,
Like a steed rushing from control,
Did'st mark, with dictatorial eye,
Some proud position,
And called it thine; but, ere the bark,
That was to thee salvation's ark,
Had reached its harbour, He, whose will
Sways every human chance and skill,
Smote thy ambition
With shipwreck. Prostrate now thou liest,
The hunter late of lofty game,
As one, to whom lowest and highest
Of human fortunes is the same.
Come hither, haughty heart, and see
The thing that's brothered most to thee
In all creation—

That pyramid grey, the glen's north Guard,
Which with a million storms hath warred,
Whose shattered peak and front is scarred
With desolation.
There, if thou hast no kindlier food
Than pride, to nurse thy bitter mood,
Preach to thyself in solitude,
And be a man.
Though thy proud schemes be crushed to dust,
Like the old granite's crumbled crust,
Hold to this plan,
With the old mountains of the land,
To stand and bear, and bear and stand,
And be a man!

But, if not wholly thou art hard,
Nor to each gracious inlet barred
Of gentle feeling,
Attend; amid this savage grandeur,
There breathes a spirit not untender,
With balmy healing
Fraught to the chastened soul. Behold
These giant-slabs of granite old,
That mail the mountain's shelvy side;
Even in their chinks the delicate pride
Blooms of the starry Saxifrage.
So rich is God. From age to age
He in the least things and the lowest,
Which scarce thine eye notes where thou goest,
His power displays;
Not more in noon-day glory bright,
Than in the worm, that shines by night
With living rays.
This Goat-fell, king of Arran's hills,
Though harsh he show, and hard, like thee,
That scarce a stunted rowan tree
Fringes his skirt;—not the less he
Is parent of a thousand rills,
That, from his deep cells trickling free,
Through beds of swelling verdure ooze,
As soft and kind as summer dews,
When softest falling.
Or look thou there, where, leaping wild
From rock to rock the mountain-child
With boisterous brawling,
Swells to a river—wandering there
By the treeless pool so glassy fair,
Where granite ruin paves the bed
With rocky amber richly spread,
Even in that thin and loamless brook,
The mountain-trout, from nook to nook
All nimbly glancing,
I spied; there too was life; and there
Was joy entrancing,
Which full life ever brings. Not bare
Of joy is Goat-fell's barest spot;
Nor bare art thou, if thou wilt not
Hug thee in self-nursed proud despair.
Here, where hoar Chaos seems to hold
A remnant of his empire old,
And with gashed brow and stony eyes,
The primal Beauty shattered lies,
In blank prostration;
Even here the living God doth lurk,
On death's foundation
Who never tires to pile the work
Of new creation.

Trust thou to Him; and, if the rod
Smites thee from heaven, bend thou to God.
Amid these girdling mountains' grandeur
Feel thyself small, and freely render
Thy heart to Him. Thou need'st not seek
Far here, far there; let Nature speak;
And, if thou feel'st a burden, pour,
Like yon young torrent gushing o'er,
The free repentance:
Thus His full Mercy's gracious store
With liberal dash thy guilt shall score,
And blot the sentence.
Thou with mild wisdom softened then,
From lone Glen-Rosa's rocky glen
Shalt go to-morrow;
Bearing, from Rosa's mountains hoar,
The ancient soul-subduing lore
Of sacred sorrow.