The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

Fair within and without,
Meet home for a sage and poet,
With the pine-clad red crags all about,
And the islanded sea below it;
Behind, is a ridgy hill,
And a burn leaps down the brae,
Where the sleepy clack of a little mill
Low-pulses through the day.

Fair without, but within
Is a rarer nobler beauty—
Womanly grace the heart to win,
And patient doing of duty;
And manly thinking and wise,
And lore of the ancient times,
And a free true soul that hath no disguise,
Still singing its careless rhymes.

Without and within, all fair—
The form alike and the spirit—
He blithe and gay as the bird of the air,
She calm in her modest merit;
A self-assertive Greek,
Brisk to reason or jest,
Espoused to a Roman matron meek
And patient and self-suppressed.

Green Kerrera lies below,
You can see the green tower of Dunolly,
Lismore is green where the white ships go
Sailing by Appin slowly.
There are clouds on the hills of Mull,
And the mist over Morven streams;
And the heart of the Celt, like his day, is dull,
Or its lights but the fitfullest gleams.

O hills of Appin and Lorn,
And green foamed-girdled islands,
And pools where the rushing streams are born
That sing to the lonely Highlands;
Dear to this friend of the Gael
Are loch and stream and Ben,
And the eerie legend and song and tale
That haunt the brackened glen.

Elf-like his locks and grey,
That wave o'er a Greek-like beauty—
Tokens of wisdom ripe, whose day
Was spent in Love and Duty;
But the spirit is gay and young
As in its dewy morn,
And ever the bird-like song is sung
As the fresh new thought is born;

Bird-like song, from the hour
That fresh as the sun he rises,
Song in the mist and the flying shower,
Song when the light surprises,
Song on the lonely road,
Song in the thronging street;
Ever singing his thoughts to God,
For his thoughts are pure and sweet.

And whether of Clachan he speaks
Crumbling in dell of the Forest,
Or the rich full life of the grand old Greeks,
Or Him whom thou surely adorest,
The torrent of speech high-wrought,
Perchance with some froth on it,
Is ever a power too of generous thought,
With flashes of sparkling wit.

361

Now fatefullest tales are told
From Æschylus' tragic pages;
Now Plato and Goethe converse hold
Across the years and the ages;
Or Duncan Ban and the deer
Sweep down the rocky dell,
And burning pleas from his lips you hear
For the Celt he loves so well.

O haunt of the good and wise,
How oft have thy walls resounded
With eloquent pleas for the Celt that lies,
By a sordid life surrounded,
Or with grief that his soul's true health
Should yield to the bigot's spell,
Or the meaner sway of vulgar wealth
That lords the hill and the dell!

Beautiful home of truth!
Shall we taste no more thy gladness,
Thy mirth with the innocent bloom of youth,
Thy wise and thoughtful sadness?
Shall we sit no more at thy board
As in the bright old times
With the lightsome jest, and the grave good word,
And jets of dainty rhymes?

Farewell! the sea will beat
On thy brown rocks, crisply foaming,
And friends will sit on the far-viewed seat,
And talk in the golden gloaming;
But not such talk as we
Under the red pines had,
And, I think, I shall never more care to see
The place where I was so glad.