| |
| MOUNTAIN-TOP o’er mountain rising, | |
| Crag o’er crag, and steep o’er steep; | |
| Rugged scenes, the heart surprising | |
| With an awe profound and deep; | |
| Mountain streamlets gliding onward | 5 |
| With a swift unceasing flow,— | |
| Rushing, pouring, hurrying downward | |
| To the rivulet below, | |
| Which in mellow music surges | |
| All its rocky channels through; | 10 |
| And along the mountain gorges | |
| Frequent peeps of heavenly blue. | |
| All around the waving heather, | |
| And the rocks so stern and brown; | |
| Somewhere from the far-off ether | 15 |
| Dulcet lark-notes dropping down: | |
| On yon crag a raven perching; | |
| And a mist-cloud, wave on wave, | |
| Brooding like some ghostly arching | |
| O’er the mouth of Ossian’s cave. | 20 |
| And I sit and watch the gushing | |
| Of the little rivulet, | |
| With its crystal waters rushing | |
| On in ceaseless foam and fret; | |
| Beetling crags o’erhanging lonely | 25 |
| Caverns wrapt in thunder-gloom, | |
| Where the mountain-eagle only | |
| In their shadow finds a home; | |
| Rocks upraised like stately columns; | |
| Passes where the wild wind plays;— | 30 |
| I can read them all like volumes | |
| Filled with tales of vanished days. | |
| |
| ’T is a morning in September, | |
| And a breeze steals down the hill, | |
| Sending all at once a chill | 35 |
| Through the frame, and I remember | |
| I am sitting in Glencoe,— | |
| With its scenery enchanting, | |
| With its crags and streamlets haunting,— | |
| And my fancy wanders back | 40 |
| To that morning long ago, | |
| When, across the frozen snow, | |
| Echoed o’er the mountains black | |
| Warriors’ curses uttered plainly, | |
| Women’s voices pleading vainly, | 45 |
| Yells and shouts and frantic crying, | |
| Clanging shocks of angry steel, | |
| And, dealt above the dead and dying, | |
| Blows which strong arms only deal! * * * * * | |
| Slumberous peace and awful silence | 50 |
| Brood above this valley now, | |
| As if never sounds of violence | |
| Thrilled its echoing gorges through; | |
| Gone the clang of warfare glorious! | |
| Hushed the pibroch in the glen! | 55 |
| Perished all the wild uproarious | |
| Noise and tramp of arméd men! | |
| Desolation without measure! | |
| No sweet homestead here and there; | |
| No fair cottage with its azure | 60 |
| Smoke-wreath rising through the air! | |
| No home sounds to follow after | |
| Wild goat’s bleat or eaglet’s wail,— | |
| Childhood’s voice or girlish laughter | |
| Echoing through the quiet vale! | 65 |
| In one spot the ruins only | |
| Of the homes of murdered men, | |
| Make the loneliness more lonely, | |
| Add a weirdness to the glen: | |
| And vague thoughts of awful mystery | 70 |
| Overwhelm me like a blast, | |
| Blowing from the page of History | |
| All the horrors of the Past,— | |
| As I view the phantoms flitting | |
| From their graves of long ago, | 75 |
| And remember I am sitting | |
| In the valley of Glencoe. | |
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