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I. A MOUNTAIN child, mid Pentland’s solitudes, | |
| Thou risest, murmuring Esk, and, lapsing on, | |
| Between rude banks, o’er rock and mossy stone, | |
| Glitterest remote, where seldom step intrudes; | |
| Nor unrenowned, as, with an ampler tide, | 5 |
| Thou windest through the glens of Woodhouselee, | |
| Where mid the song of bird, the hum of bee, | |
| With soft Arcadian pictures clothed thy side | |
| The pastoral Ramsay. Lofty woods embower | |
| Thy rocky bed mid Roslin’s crannies deep, | 10 |
| While proud on high time-hallowed ruins peep | |
| Of castle and chapelle; yea, to this hour | |
| Gray Hawthornden smiles downward from its steep, | |
| To tell of Drummond’s poesy’s spring flower. | |
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II. NOT lovelier to the bard’s enamored gaze, | 15 |
| Winded Italian Mincio o’er its bed, | |
| By whispering reeds o’erhung, when calmly led | |
| To meditate what rural life displays; | |
| Trees statelier do not canopy with gloom | |
| The brooks of Valombrosa; nor do flowers, | 20 |
| Beneath Ausonia’s sky that seldom lowers, | |
| Empurple deep-dyed Brenta’s banks with bloom | |
| Fairer than thine at sweet Lasswade: so bright | |
| Thou gleam’st, a mirror for the cooing dove, | |
| That sidelong eyes its purpling form with love | 25 |
| Well pleased; mid blossomy brakes, with bosom light, | |
| All day the linnet carols; and from grove | |
| The blackbird sings to thee at fall of night. | |
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III. DOWN from the old oak forests of Dalkeith, | |
| Where majesty surrounds a ducal home, | 30 |
| Between fresh pastures gleaming thou dost come, | |
| Bush, scaur, and rock, and hazelly shaw beneath, | |
| Till, greeting thee from slopes of orchard ground, | |
| Towers Inveresk with its proud villas fair, | |
| Scotland’s Montpelier, for salubrious air | 35 |
| And beauteous prospect wide and far renowned. | |
| What else could be, since thou with winding tide | |
| Below dost ripple pleasantly, thy green | |
| And osiered banks outspread, where, frequent seen, | |
| The browsing heifer shows her dappled side, | 40 |
| And mid the bloom-bright furze are oft descried | |
| Anglers, that patient o’er thy mirror lean? | |
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IV. DELIGHTFUL ’t is, and soothing sweet, at eve, | |
| When sunlight like a dream hath passed away | |
| O’er Pentland’s far-off peaks, and shades of gray | 45 |
| Around the landscape enviously weave, | |
| To saunter o’er this high walk canopied | |
| With scented hawthorn, while the trellised bowers | |
| Are rich with rose and honeysuckle flowers, | |
| And gaze o’er plains and woods outstretching wide | 50 |
| Till bounded by the Morphoot’s heights of blue, | |
| That range along the low southwest afar; | |
| And thee, translucent Esk, with face of blue; | |
| While, as enamored, evening’s first fair star | |
| Looks on thy pool its loveliness to view. | 55 |
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V. A BEECH-TREE o’er the mill-stream spreads its boughs, | |
| In many an eddy whirls the wave beneath; | |
| From Stony-bank the west-wind’s perfumed breath | |
| Sighs past,—’t is summer’s gentle evening close; | |
| Smooth Esk, above thy tide the midges weave, | 60 |
| Mixing and meeting oft, their fairy dance; | |
| While o’er the crown of Arthur’s Seat a glance | |
| Of crimson plays,—the sunshine’s glorious leave; | |
| Except the blackbird from the dim Shire Wood, | |
| All else is still. So passes human life | 65 |
| From us away,—a dream within a dream: | |
| Ah! where are they, who with me, by this stream, | |
| Roamed ere this world was known as one of strife? | |
| Comes not an answer from the solitude! | |
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VI. LEANING upon the time-worn parapet | 70 |
| Of this old Roman bridge, that to the bay | |
| Of Forth hath seen thee, Esk, gliding away | |
| From age to age, and spans thee gliding yet,— | |
| Before me I behold thy sea-most town, | |
| Yclept in Saxon Chronicles Eske-mouthe,— | 75 |
| Its venerable roofs, its spire uncouth, | |
| And Pinkie’s field of sorrowful renown. | |
| Scenes of my childhood, manhood, and decline,— | |
| Scenes that my sorrows and my joys have known, | |
| Ye saw my birth, and be my dust your own, | 80 |
| When, as these waters mingle with the sea, | |
| To look upon the light no more is mine, | |
| And time is swallowed in eternity! | |
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