Our Holiday Among The Hills :: :: University of Virginia Library

She speeds through southern seas;
And William in the bow
—His white hair by the steady breeze
Blown forward on his brow—
Sees other scenes than Scottish trees
And Scottish burnies now.

II

Forward he seems to lean—
As if with eager eyes

To anticipate the future scene
That far before him lies
Beyond the line that sweeps between
The ocean and the skies.

III

What marvels lay aside
Their mystery to him!
What famous islets are descried
On the horizon dim!
What constellations o'er him slide!
What monsters past him swim!

IV

Leviathan at play
Tempests the weltering brine;
The Southern Cross redeems the day
With radiancy divine;
And on yon rock Napoleon lay
After his great decline!

V

We traced, and traced again,
Schoolboys, with knitted brow,
Upon one atlas with a pen
The track of that ship's prow:
—I had the fuller knowledge then,
He has the ampler now.

VI

Down the blue hemisphere,
White sail! to Table Bay,
For sake of one whom we hold dear,
Glide steadily, we pray—
We twenty, in the hamlet here,
Whose hearts thou bear'st away!

SUNSET ON THE LOMONDS.

See where into the sunset far
The terraced mountains rise,
The cresset of a single star
Just o'er them in the skies!
Oh that to me a dove's meek eyes
And snow-white wings were given,
To reach yon hills and realise
The calm they have from Heaven!
My soul is o'er the Vale of Leven,
(Though here in streets I stray)
Till fades the holy golden even;
—The wish, too, dies away!

Alas for earth, that all it may
Is but a mood in me!
And that when Heaven withdraws its ray
The mood should cease to be!

OUR DRIVE.

The toll-road we left where a by-way
Leaves room for a burnie between,
And now we look out on the highway
From under an awning of green.

The bees in the cherry-tree o'er us
Hum low, and are happy by stealth,
While hither and thither before us
Flaunt coach-loads of fashion and wealth.

They're glancing and prancing, and feather
And ribbon are sweeping the sky
—We sit in our arbour together
And smilingly let them go by!

For we too are rich, and we know it,
In health and in hope and in brains;
And hold with the old Hebrew poet
—Earth ours, and the joys it contains.

We, too, by the laws that o'er-rule us,
Career it as grand as the great,
Our horses the forces that pull us,
And earth our Quadriga of State!

Away in a curve that encloses
The golden abode of the sun,
Through snowflakes, and raindrops, and roses,
The steeds of our universe run!

How swiftly the wheels are revolving!
How smoothly we're bowling along!
—Come, Janet! I hope you're resolving
To honour our drive with a song!

While I, with my heel on a pansy,
And thyme in a bank at my back,
Will finger the reins with the fancy
Of keeping our steeds in the track!

HOLIDAYS.

Once more, once more again
On me, from city cares who fly,
Lochleven, like a loving eye,
Looks round the shoulder of the hills;

And all life's artificial ills
Pass from me with their pain!

The smoke will leave a stain;
In absence of the cleansing shower
The dust will dim the freshest flower:
Happy the heart on whom the dust
Of active life (for blow it must)
Grows not a thing in grain!

Nor are those ills in vain:
They come upon our passions here
Like winter rigours on the year—
The purer are the daisies' dyes
When Spring comes round, bluer the skies,
And welcomer the rain!

To some the breezy main;
To some the moors and burns; to some
Who cannot go, sweet thoughts will come;
To me—enfranchisement from ills
When gleams, as now, between the hills
Lochleven o'er the plain.

CASTLE GLOOM.

The hand of Time, O Castle Gloom!
Will soon be thy undoing;
The Mene Mene of thy doom
Is written on thy ruin!

What though the Ochils round thee stand,
A bulwark firm and fast?
Thy strength is as the broken sand,
Thy pride of power is past.

And of thy walls, to dust decayed,
The rain has made a mould
Which feeds the saddening nettle-blade,
Or wall-flower flecked with gold.

The mountain-ash with berries red
Looks through thy windows high,
And rain upon thy floors is shed
From rain-clouds passing by.

Still brawls the Sorrow round thy base
To join his brother Care;
—Oh, ill-advised they chose the place
Who reared thy fabric there!

Ill-chosen was the place, the hour,
Ill-omened was the name;
The sun even in meridian power
Glooms on thy rugged frame!

—Yet once, ere time completes thy doom,
Thy halls with joy shall ring
Frightening the dreary birds of gloom
That to thy corners cling.

For in thy topmost tower to-night
Two hearts, made one in tune,
With Hymen's torches burning bright
Light up the honeymoon.

And from thy topmost window-seat,
When next the sun has shone,
His smile responsive smiles shall meet,
More cheerful than his own!

MY WINDOW.

Where gold laburnum hangs in fringe
And fragrant lilacs blow,
Where resting rays with rosy tinge
Suffuse the hawthorn's snow,

Through elm-trees high in pride that stand
With heads that pierce the skies,
My window gazes on the land
That low before it lies.

Fair cultured fields in youthful bloom,
Whose freshness glads the eye,
With here and there a grateful gloom
Of forest dense and high,
With here and there a white highroad
By March winds bleached and clean,
And thousand gleams of water strewed
At random in between;—

In terraces they slope away
To meet reflected sky—
The deep blue waters of the bay
That clear and tranquil lie.
The far horizon's line of light,
The sunny, open sea,
The distant sails that glimmer white—
How glad, and young, and free!

THE CATARACT.

See where he bursts in beauty bar and lock
In a fierce haste to wed with her below,
The gentle Elv, that steals with rippling flow
Along the deep-sunk dale! With what a shock
His feet alight on this pink granite block!
And how, half-stunned, he staggers to and fro,
Compelled to pause, yet passionate to go,
Till, steadying all his strength, he shoots the rock!

The hazel coppice and a belt of pine
Receive him next after his madman's bound;
Yet still I see his great eyes, questing, shine
Between the branches; and I hear the sound
Of one whose lip is near some joy divine,
Broken, and low, and last in rapture drowned.

CASTLE DESOLATE.

On broken wall and fallen stone
Are grass and lichen growing,
And winds around the courtyard moan
Where bugles once were blowing!

And grey Oblivion's eyeless face
Looks blankly through the grating
Where ladies once with witching grace
Smiled to their knights in waiting!

And kaes and starlings build and breed
Where social fires were roaring,
And from the donjon, choked with weed,
A lark aloft is soaring.

WINTER: AN ELEGY.

I

I look from my lonely window
Over the snowy plain—
A hearse and a handful of mourners
Are creeping through the rain.
The flowers are dead and departed,
The memory of Summer is gone,
Song from the lark, and the lark from heaven,
—And the day drags on!

II

My soul looks out from its grating,
And sees without a sigh

The funeral train of youthful hopes
Mournfully pass by.
Health, and the joy of existence,
And the faiths that wont to be,
And love are dead and departing
—It's winter with me!

THE VOICES OF NORWAY.

The cataract thundering from the airy rock,
Or shouting through the forest wild and free;
The river roaring onward to the sea,
Defiant of all craft to bind or block
Its loose unshackled strength; the thunder-shock,
Echoed in silence round the blasted tree;
And the black eagle screaming in his glee
Above the storm, which his strong wings bemock:

—These are old Norway's voices: not the shrill
Whistle of steam-car jarring down the street,
Nor clang of factory-bell, nor clank of mill
Banging and beating to a fever-heat
Of madness blood and brain; but Nature still
Inhabits here, and men sit at her feet!

SUMMER ON THE LOMOND.

The silver mists of morning rise
Obedient to the sun,
And lo! the Lomond—to my eyes
Of all the hills that kiss the skies
The dearest fairest one.

To Alps or Andes let them hie
Who slight the hills at home—
To Alps and Andes let them fly:
With freer step will you and I
Upon the Lomond roam.

Its ample upland lawns be ours,
Forsaken yet so fair;
Its braes, its burnies, and its flowers,
Its long calm summer pastoral hours,
And its ethereal air!

Oh sweet is love at eventide
In green suburban lane!
But on the Lomond—time is wide,
And life is love, and glorified,
And Eden back again!

IN ORWELL ACRE.

“Sui Vitam Innocuam per Plurima Lustra
Peregit Pace Diu Gaudens Hic Tumulatus
Obit Robertus Paterson—Mortem Subiit Ann.
Dom. 1669, Ætatis Vero 97.”

Forget-me-nots around the table grow
—Nature's unconscious satire, for indeed,
What with the weather, wear of time, and weed,
We scarce make out the little that we know
Of Robert Paterson who sleeps below.
Patience and spell! And now at last we read
In Latin old the meagre facts we need
To set us thinking of the long ago.

Here was a patriarchal length of life
That ran its peaceful course to ninety-seven,
Begun when Shakespeare played, nor thought of wife,
(A little tiny boy ) beside the Avon;
And closed while Herrick, heedless of the strife
Of civil war, was singing down in Devon!

“When that I was, and a little tiny boy, &c.
But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey-ho! the wind and the rain.”

THE LARK.

The curtains of the East are drawn,
The sun is looking through,
And hark! the minstrel of the dawn
Is up, and at it too!

What gushes of true song are these
From fountains of the sky
Flung heedless on the morning breeze
That heedless passes by!

Was ever mortal beauty blest,
In modern days or old,
With half so sweet salute addrest
From lover's lips of gold?

Nay; but did ever splendour grace,
Or smiling mirth adorn,
A fairer or a happier face
Than that of Lady Morn?

Oh still, where loveliness is had,
With equal length so long
Will beauty make the minstrel glad
And gladness run to song!

Thou glorious poet of the dawn!
What melodies are these
Thou flingest heedlessly upon
The unremembering breeze?

Could I, in human paraphrase,
But fix them in a book,
On which in dark and rainy days,
When thou art dumb, to look—

What harmonies should then be heard
Of word and note complete!
—With thee, thou little Bird and Bard,
Not one would dare compete!

A FIRST OF MAY.

It was the first of May, and from the town
Our young folks hastened in their best array,
Our young folks hastened to bring in the May
From where she loitered on the distant down.
Said one—I hope she wears her snow-white crown;
And one—They heard the cuckoo yesterday;
I see her—cried another—far away
Like a thin streak of silver on the brown!

So to the down we came, and here and there
Our little troop went peering far and wide;
Then gathered silent: every bush was bare,
And snow in the bleak hollows was descried,
And new-born lambs wailed to the wintry air
Their feeble plaints along the lorn hillside!

THE BURN.

Where hazel-branches meet o'erhead
In shade translucent green,
The burn springs from its rocky bed
And plashes cool between.
It dashes brightly down the den,
Touched by the morning sun,
And seeks the flat green fields of men
To have its work begun.

It stays not for the pink wild-rose
That bends and blushes shy,
Nor for the bank where glittering grows
The graceful birk-tree nigh,
Nor for the blue-bell, throned a queen
Amid the strawberry leaves—
For all the beauties of the scene
It neither stays nor grieves.

It steals one look, in leaping down,
Towards the distant sky
Where grand and solemn, still and lown,
The cloudy mountains lie,
Then flings its bright young life along
The plains that thirsty be,
And rushes in the river strong
Towards the endless sea!

ANDRO'S GRIEF.

The winds, as day was dawning, slept
After a stormy parley;
And up the sky the laverock leapt
From out the “mixing” barley,
When Andro from his cottage stept
And looked to heaven, and wept!

I saw his face—his face was pale,
Tears from his eyes were breaking,
Yet neither sob nor sound of wail
Told that his heart was aching:
The aching heart—it knows its ail;
But what would words avail?

His little white-haired boy had died
As dawned the tranquil morning,
And Andro's grief was ill to hide,
And yet, disclosure scorning,
He hailed me as I passed, and cried—
“A pleasant morning ride!”

THE SUN'S GOOD NIGHT.

Over the mountain's shoulder looks
The Sun to say Good night
To all the merry singing brooks
That sparkled in his light;
To all the dancing waterfalls
That dashed their diamond spray
Against their green and ferny walls
In greeting to the day;
To every hill whose gentle breast
Swells up into the sky;
To every flower that seeks a nest
Amid the bent so dry;
To all the brave blue-bells that swing
In every passing wind;
To every bird whose wearied wing
A resting-place can find;

To quiet sheep that contemplate
His beams in grassy places;
To children with his smiles that wait
Upon their chubby faces;
To every tree that glads the glen,
Sweet birch and rowan ruddy;
To happy wives, and resting men,
And every other body!

A TRANSFORMATION.

All round a sky of dead continuous grey
Smothered the valley like a smoky tent,
Save that a small well-marked irregular rent
In the low roof let in a gleam of day.
All morning to that gap mine eyes would stray
For the blue freedom of the firmament,
And with that window I had been content
To gaze afar into the heavens alway.
But suddenly the travelling sun above
Came to the lattice, and lo! the earth was fair;
The clouds took on the lustre of a dove,
Twinkled, and flew, and melted into air!
—Such wonders works the smile of one we love
When we are half abandoned to despair!

A DREAM.

O'erburdened with a weight of woes, amassed
Slowly, I prayed—Kind spirit, grant a boon:
Show me that mine's a common care!—And soon
(The present like a mantle from me cast)
I wandered blindfold forward; till, at last,
The land of shadows and of shapes unhewn!
And lo! the pale face of a frightened moon
Looked on a sea of faces surging past!
And one sad face out of the tidal throng,
One out of millions, for a moment seen,
Turned round upon me as it swept along,
And a strange sudden joy altered the mien
—A smile sat on the lips that framed a song,
And the bright eyes spoke of a faith serene!

TREASURE-TROVE.

Clive, walking down that gallery of gold;
A shepherd in the bush, whose staring eyes
Half doubt the nugget at his feet that lies
From nature's secret treasure-house outrolled;

A ragged schoolboy, clutching in his hold
A sudden sixpence;—vainly memory tries
Similitudes to make you realise
Her ecstasy: but no! it can't be told!
—What was my find, you ask?
It was the hour
Friendly to love, when, seeing yet concealed,
Its votaries worship in a twilight bower,
That, at a crossing, at one step revealed,
Just standing clear of the cathedral tower,
The new moon argent in an azure field!

RUS IN URBE.

Among the city sounds to-day
I heard the clacking of a loom,
Or thought I heard; and far away
My heart went bounding to the broom,
The golden broom! that to a town
Whose name to me is ever sweet,
Comes from the hillside tumbling down
And laughs along the lonely street.

I saw among the fragrant broom
The herd, a hardy sun-browned elf,

Inhabiting a world of bloom,
—As once it might have been myself.

I heard the carol of the lark,
The lyric of the laden bee;
I saw the silver-glistening bark,
And tresses of the birken tree;
The poplars growing by the manse,
The water bubbling from the well
—How clear as crystal was its glance!
How musically soft it fell!

I saw the school, the children too,
The maps upon the schoolroom wall,
The playground—and the white-veined blue
Of God's protection over all!
The linen bleaching on the green;
The basins, shimmering in the light;
Shrill laughter from a child unseen
Bringing a searching maid in sight.

I heard the anvil's tinkling sound,
The smith himself was hid from view;
I saw the wheel-wright's wheels so round
Set up in staring red and blue.
The church, the mill, the village store,
The carrier half-way down the street,
The casks around the grocer's door,
And Pincher winking in the heat;

The cottage-windows, bright to view
With flowers (in pot and box) in bloom
—And all this vision woven to
The fancied clacking of a loom!—

The sanded doorstep, and the row
Of haddocks hardening on the wall,
And “bobbin” wives that come and go,
And spinning-wheels—I saw them all!
And this was in the city street
With traffic's current pouring strong,
Its black waves weltering at my feet
And roaring as they rushed along!

Crack! went a passing cabman's whip,
—Burst on my ears the world of din;
The vision gave my mind the slip,
And all the city hemmed me in!

THE SPRING WOODS.

In life's young ardent prime,
When winds were soft and skies were blue,
And spring was making Earth anew,
These woodlands I have wandered through
From daybreak till the fall of dew,
Oh many, and many a time!

And now, from foreign clime
Backward returning with the heat
Of youth-time gone, I set my feet
In the old welcoming wood-retreat
With joy, and hear the birds repeat
With joy the same old rhyme!
Morning and evening chime—
The same old joys of eye and ear
Invite me still, and still are dear;
And merry schoolboys rambling here,
As I did whilom fifty year,
Repeat the pantomime!

A SERVICE OF LAMPS.

I woke, and chair and floor were strewn
With leaves of silver thin,
And at the lattice, lo! the moon
Quite close and staring in!

I slept, and woke again, and lo!
A glory unforetold—
As of a sudden morning glow—
Filled all the room with gold!

What glorious travelling lamps are these
That o'er my pillow sweep!
—Between their splendid services
Lay just three hours of sleep.

THE EPILOGUE.

The season's o'er; sport (save the mark!) is poor,
And on the heather scarcely now remains
A single gun: already winter rains
Darken and drown the melancholy moor.
And now, where social coveys played secure
Ere the red Twelfth began, a voice complains,
To winds that sob in answer, of the pains
The gentle tenants of the waste endure.
It is a plover, wailing through the shade
Of night and rain-cloud on the upland lea,
Around the marsh, where in the spring it played,
And piped in summer, with its kindred free
In the bright sunshine.

—Plaints like its have made
The moor a melancholy place to me.

LOCHLEVEN FROM TILLERY HILL.

Look back!—Lochleven, and a rare surprise!
Long silver lines across its bosom run
Bright in the light of the September sun:
The rest in purple shadow slumbering lies.
Yonder Benarty, here the Lomonds rise,
And you may count the islands every one
—There, in yon castle on the island dun,
Languished Queen Mary, loved of many eyes!—
The scene, though quiet, yet is fair—and full
Of interest to a guide that knows his trade;
Chiefly, I must confess, to me (and you'll
Perhaps endorse the opinion when it's made),
For that Servanus kept his Culdee school
On yon lone island in Benarty's shade.

St Serf's Island.

ON READING DR JAMIESON'S HISTORY OF THE CULDEES.

Honour to them who put to rout the dark
Of Druid rule over our land forlorn,
What time to lone Iona, ocean-born,
Came through the mists Columba's wandering bark!

Honour to them who in a fragile ark
Nursed the true light amid prelatic scorn
And papist, till the Reformation morn
At midnight rose from its expiring spark!
Now in these latter times the light again,
Menaced by controversial mists and blasts,
Grows dim behind the clouds, and purblind men
Follow rush-candles while the tumult lasts:
—But blow, thou clear strong wind of Truth! and then
Shine forth, pure Faith! on strayed enthusiasts.

PAST AND FUTURE.

In Spring, when hopes like primroses were blooming,
And youth was in its prime,
'Twas here we talked, our cares to come assuming,
Like fools, before their time.

We turned our faces from the past so tearless,
So fresh, and free of stain,
And for the future longed so blindly fearless
We never dreamt of pain.

And now again after a seven years' roaming,
Under the same green lime,
We almost sigh in the dim summer gloaming
For that neglected prime.

A LOVE IDYL.

Scene—An Orchard.

Idly roving without aim
Up the orchard path he came,
When, from out a corner cosy,
Stept and stopt him, blushing rosy,
Rosy with her face aflame!

(He speaks—)

Rosy! You deserve your name!
Cheek and chin, and brow and bosy,
—All are of one colour, rosy!

(A Pause. Then—)

Is it shyness? . . . Is it shame? . . .
Shall I bless you? . . . Shall I blame? . . .
Ear and eyelid, neck and nosy!
—Was it cherry-brandy, Rosy? . . .
Is't a lover?

(A longer pause. No answer. Then—)

Here's a game!
Well, I'll stalk him, wild or tame.
No! you shall not stop me, Rosy!
—Ah! he's bolted; yonder goes he!

(Looking after a retreating figure, her brother continues—)

I should know that agile frame . . .
Rosy! won't you tell his name?
Come, you'd better!

(She whispers a name. Then he—)

Good for Rosy!
Why, he's King of Trumps, is Josey!

THE COUNTRY LAIRD.

(Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis, &c.)

Happy the man who leads the life
Of patriarch of old,
Far from the city's fevering strife
And from the race for gold.

He owns with pride his fathers' lands
—Who would that pride condemn?
And cultivates with his own hands
The fields he had from them.

A soldier, when the bugle calls,
Must leap to meet the foe;
A sailor, when the storm appals,
Must hurry from below!

A lawyer must attend his case,
His client at his heel;
A hanger-on, to earn a place,
Must knuckle down, and kneel.

From fear, and care, and envious hopes,
The country laird is free,
As to the breezy mountain-slopes
At morning forth goes he!

How pleasant from their pastoral tops
To watch his herds below;
Or see, at mid-day, in the copse
The oaks he planted grow!

Now in his garden in the cool
Of shady flowering trees,
He plies an easy gardening tool,
Or overlooks his bees.

Or on the first warm day in May
After a genial spring,
He rises at the peep of day
To view the sheep-shearing.

Or, when the year to harvest comes,
He stooks the golden sheaves,
Or counts his juicy pears and plums
And looks in vain for leaves!

While these delightful seasons pass,
He sometimes may be seen
Extended on the scented grass
Beneath a leafy screen.

Soft sunshine through the branches peeps,
And fountains fall around,
And wrens and robins sing—he sleeps,
Yet hears in sleep their sound.

But Winter comes: the trees are bare,
The fields are hard with frost;
And now, you ask, how does he fare?
—Are all his pleasures lost?

See him at early morning, capped
With fox-fur for the cold,
Step forth, well-breakfasted and wrapped,
A hardy hunter bold!

On his left arm the shining steel,
Upon his back the bag,
And sure, but shivering, at his heel,
Spotty, and Spring, and Shag.

Two red hares in the valley bleed,
One blue hare on the hill;
But round the marsh, where wild-fowl feed,
There is a deadly kill!

Four brace of snipe, a ptarmigan,
Six brace of duck and teal,
And, maybe, a fat Iceland swan
Fall to the pointed steel.

As homeward in the early gloom
A tired man he returns,
He sees far off his dining-room,
The fire within that burns;

And, waiting with a welcoming smile,
His healthy comely wife
—For an unwedded love's a wile
To mar the happiest life.

And now—while bon vivants in town
Sit o'er their oyster-sauce,
Or gulp the fat green turtle down
Their vitiated hausse;

Or French ragout, or fricassee,
With unclean jaws devour,
Drenching th'unhallowed mixture wi'
A claret cold and sour;

Or, maybe, in a lodging-house,
Or modish restaurant,
They pick their morsel of a mouse
While still the doors go bang!

As black-tailed mutes, bedropt with grease,
Whisk out, and whirry in,
And bring the biscuit and the cheese
Before you well begin—

He sits at his own table-head
In peace, and plenty too,
And eats his game to home-baked bread
And native mountain-dew!

One tidy Phyllis, and no more,
To whom he needs but look,
Receives the dishes at the door
From a sweet-tempered cook!

He drinks the Queen, the Church and State,
The landed Interest too;
Then, turning to his smiling mate
—“And this, my dear, to you!”

—Oh, that's the life, as all will own,
Securest yet from sorrow;
I'll sell my shares, call up my loans,
And buy a farm to-morrow!

He raised his loans—he realised
Ten thousand for that end;
A fortnight—and he advertised
Ten thousand pounds to lend!

MORNING RAINBOW.

In glint and gloom the barley swayed,
The darting swallow sang,
And sweetly in the gleaming glade
The bursting blossoms sprang.
As blithesomely I looked along
Its line of checkered shade,
A rainbow o'er the roadway flung
A bridge of glorious braid!

The vision stood before I knew,
And what was earth but lately
(For though it was a charming view
It did not thrill me greatly)
Became transfigured, grew to me
Heaven's glorious portal straightway;
—Expectant I looked up to see
An angel in the gateway.

THE HAWK AND THE TWO LINNETS.

A hawk was wheeling in the high hill-air,
With systematic curve gleaning the heather,
On the fierce outlook for a partridge feather
Or moor-cock's claw—your hawk loves dainty fare—
When, just beneath him, rose a loving pair
Of linnets, and on social wing together
Flew jauntily along—they best knew whither—
Singing, and of their danger unaware.

He saw, and, ceasing his aerial tour,
Hung motionless by the sheer strength of will;
Then, like a stone slung with precision sure

And deadly force, meant not to maim but kill,
Down came his hawkship, missed, and struck the moor;
And those two linnets—they await him still!

THE LAST NIGHT ON THE TOWER.

While to the West the sky is clear,
Of palest amber hue,
Where warmer tints just disappear
—The East is purely blue;
The blue of which blue-bells are made,
As soft as air in Spring,
With here and there a cloudlet laid
White as an angel's wing.

Down in the vale the village sleeps
Wrapt in a smoky shroud,
Save where some cottage firelight peeps
Half frightened through the cloud.
And in the gloom the woody glen
Seems to contract and close
Its sundered sides to meet again,
Forgetting they were foes.

The rounded outlines of the hills
Are carven on the sky;
A star into existence thrills
And trembles there on high.
Oh fairer than a diamond bright
Upon a queenly brow,
The first fair jewel of the Night
Hangs o'er Craiginnan Knowe.

The rushing of the restless streams
Is surging in the air;
Far up, among the mountains, gleams
Each fountain, calm and fair.
But ever run the rapid rills
To seek the Sea's unrest
—And we, too, must forsake the hills
Upon the self-same quest!

Behind Castle Campbell.

The Care, and the Sorrow—which unite just below the old castle.