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

Lays of the Highlands and Islands

By John Stuart Blackie

Blackie, John Stuart (1809-1895)

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TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE BARONESS BURDETT COUTTS.

IONA.

THE VOYAGE OF COLUMBA.

THE DEATH OF COLUMBA.

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BONNIE BLACKWATER.

Bonnie Blackwater,
'Neath the mountain's brow
Roaring and brawling and swirling with glee,
Round by the roots of the red rowan tree,
Where the plumes of the fern weave a chaplet for thee;
Whence comest thou?

I'm the Blackwater,
Born in the sky,
My mother the mist, and she fed me with dew;
In the little black tarn to stature I grew,
Which the men who love me call Loch Duhh;
Thence come I.

194

Bonnie Blackwater,
Whither goest thou?
By the old grey crag that nods o'er thee,
By the broad-browed Ben that slopes to thee,
By the purple brae, and the bonnie green lea,
Whither goest thou?

Thou Saxon stranger,
With mild blue eye,
By the crag, and the brae, and the bonnie green lea,
I wend, and I bend, and I swirl with glee
To the long blue loch that runs up from the sea;
Thither go I.

Bonnie Blackwater,
And is it then so?
And wilt thou be lost in the wide, wide sea,
Far from the crag, and the brae, and the lea,
Lost to the mountain, and hid from me
In ocean's flow?

195

Thou mild-eyed stranger,
It is not so;
Up from the sea fine vapours rise,
Where the white cloud sails, and the light bird flies,
And they float me back to my native skies;
Thither I go.