AT LOCH ERICHT.
I.
No railways here!—thank Heaven at length I'm free
From travelling Cockneys, wondering at a hill,
From lisping dames, who from the city flee,
To nurse feigned raptures at a tumbling rill!
From huge hotels and grandly-garnished inns,
With all things but true kindness in their plan,
And from sleek waiters, whose obsequious grins
Do make me loathe the very face of man!
Smooth modern age, which no rough line doth mar,
All men must praise thy very decent law!
But in this bothie I am happier far,
Where I must feed on oats, and sleep on straw.
For why?—here men look forth from honest faces,
And are what thing they seem, without grimaces.
II.
O heavens! a lovelier day ne'er shone upon
The gleaming beauty of the long-drawn flood!
Come hither, if Scotland boasts a loyal son,
And nurse the holy patriotic mood!
These crags that sink precipitous to the waves,
These floods that gush down the sheer-breasted hill,
They were not made to train soft fashion's slaves,
And to nice modes to trim the pliant will.
A strong rude heart once burned in Scottish men,
And Scotland showed her stamp upon her sons;
The mountain-nursling all might surely ken;
But now through all one English smoothness runs;
Men cut their manners, as their clothes, by rule,
But none grows strong in Nature's breezy school.
