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

Ye gentle folks that peak and pine,
And bend your back with sickly crook
O'er counted cash or inky line,
In the grey city's dingy nook,
I pray you shake the dust away
From your brown coat some breezy day,
And, when you hear the whistle shrill
Of railway car behind the hill,
Be wise, and jump into the train,
And rattle on with hissing strain,
To see how well we spend our time
In face of Lomond Ben sublime,
At leafy Edendarach.

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At Edendarach, on the shore,
Nor rattling cab, nor dusty street,
Nor eager crowds with rival roar,
Disturb our quiet, green retreat,
Where on the grassy slope we sit,
And see the light-winged shadows flit
From heather brae to heather brae,
And listen through the sunny day
To the sweet birds that hymn their love
From blooming bush or greening grove;
While we, with hearts as blithe as they,
Sing carols to the lusty May,
At leafy Edendarach.

And when we're stirred by livelier mood
And love of high adventure, then
We steam it o'er the glancing flood
To the high-fronted broad-viewed Ben.
From Rowardennan we make start,
And scale the height with cunning art
A-foot, or, if our strength be scanty,
Astride on some stout Rosinante;
From crag to crag we wend along,

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With shout, and lash, and lusty song,
Far up amid the breezy blue,
But never wandering from the view
Of leafy Edendarach.

Now by the neck we seize the Ben,
And now we stand upon his crown,
And look victorious on the glen,
With dark-blue flood far-stretching down,
And view with wondering strange emotion
Bens upon bens, a tumbled ocean,
With peak, and scaur, and jagged crest,
And braes in fresh green glory drest,
And wooded isle, and gleaming bay,
And smoking cities far away,
And what defies all tongue to tell,
But in dear memory loves to dwell,
At leafy Edendarach.

Or, if a lower game shall please,
Deftly we seize the limber oar,
And, from its cove of sheltering trees,
Wing our light wherry from the shore.

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Swift as an arrow from the bow,
We cut the bright loch's wavy flow;
Swift as a gull the billow skims,
Our Highland laddies stretch their limbs;
With laughing eye and glowing face,
Our lasses urge the liquid race;
While Tarbet greets with loud halloo
The livery of the red and blue,
The pride of Edendarach!

From isle to isle we leap the wave,
As swift as shot from touch of trigger,
Until we come beneath the cave
Of ruddy Rob, the stout Macgregor:
Then, like a goat that loves a crag,
We scramble up from jag to jag;
On many a gnarled and tangled root
We clench the hand and fix the foot,
And cautious creep, with many a shift,
Beneath a yawning granite rift,
And, wondering, see the rock-roofed den
Which lodged that friend of honest men,
Not far from Edendarach.

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Then through the tangled copsy maze,
We forage bravely all and each,
And from the wood's dry ruin raise
A crackling fire upon the beach.
Uprolls the smoke with curling pride,
The kettle boils with bubbling tide,
And from the spout all full and free,
Flow fragrant streams of dark-brown tea;
Then with strong wine and loud acclaim,
We toast the brave Macgregor's name;
Our honoured lady, too, and lord,
Who richly spread the friendly board
For us at Edendarach!

And thus from lightsome day to day,
Gaily we spend the winged time
In play, or work that's kin to play,
Beneath Ben Lomond's brow sublime.
And you—if ye are wise to think
How toil with leisure loves to link
Her various chain, and fear to grind
At the tread-mill which murders mind—
Break from your tethered task, and take

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A taste of Lomond's breezy lake,
For three bright sunny weeks with me,
Amid the greenwood rambling free,
At leafy Edendarach!

130

ROB ROY'S CAVE.

Here lodged Rob Roy; proud kings have palaces,
And foxes holes, and sheep the sheltering fold;
Fish own the pools, and birds the plumy trees;
And stout Rob Roy possessed this granite hold.
Call him not thief and robber: he was born
A hero more than most that wear a star,
And brooked his brawny strength with manly scorn
On fraud and force and falsehood to make war.
In these well-trimmed and well-oiled times a man
Moves part of a machine: but then strong will
Shaped each hard-sinewed life to kingly plan,
And ruled by right of might and law of skill.
When kings were weak, lords false, and lawyers knaves,
Rob Roy saved honest men from being slaves.

131

ARDLUI: THE PULPIT ROCK.

I.

In sooth a goodly temple, walled behind
With crag precipitous of granite grey,
And by green birches corniced, which the wind
Sowed o'er the rim in random rich display,
And for a roof the azure-curtained hall,
Light-floating cloud, and broad benignant ray,
And organed by the hum of waterfall,
And plash of bright waves in the gleaming bay.
And here's the pulpit, this huge granite mass
Erect, frost-sundered from the mossy crown,
And there the people sit on turfy grass,
And here the fervid preacher thunders down;
Go kneel beneath Saint Paul's proud dome, and say
If God be nearer there, or here to day!

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II.

Huge Bens, green glens, hoar waterfalls, blue skies
Belaud who will; there's something nobler here,
A thing that being seen with thoughtful eyes
Types Scotland's strength in lines more sharp and clear.
Let others poise the pictured dome, and pour
Through long-drawn aisles the curious-chanted prayer,
With various beauty pave the figured floor,
And with rich clouds of perfume load the air;
But, Scotland, thou, when meddling priests would bind
Thine unbought lips in courtly form to pray,
Thy temple in the open moor did'st find,
Thy pulpit in the granite boulder grey;
Accept the sign, and point with sturdy pride
To thy York Minster on Loch Lomond's side!