| |
| BLUE was the loch, the clouds were gone, | |
| Ben-Lomond in his glory shone, | |
| When, Luss, I left thee; when the breeze | |
| Bore me from thy silver sands, | |
| Thy kirkyard wall among the trees, | 5 |
| Where, gray with age, the dial stands; | |
| That dial so well known to me! | |
| Though many a shadow it had shed, | |
| Beloved sister, since with thee | |
| The legend on the stone was read. | 10 |
| The fairy isles fled far away; | |
| That with its woods and uplands green | |
| Where shepherd-huts are dimly seen, | |
| And songs are heard at close of day; | |
| That too, the deer’s wild covert, fled, | 15 |
| And that, the asylum of the dead: | |
| While, as the boat went merrily, | |
| Much of Rob Roy the boatman told; | |
| His arm that fell below his knee, | |
| His cattle-ford and mountain hold. | 20 |
| Tarbat, thy shore I climbed at last; | |
| And, thy shady region passed, | |
| Upon another shore I stood, | |
| And looked upon another flood; | |
| Great Ocean’s self! (’T is He who fills | 25 |
| That vast and awful depth of hills;) | |
| Where many an elf was playing round, | |
| Who treads unshod his classic ground; | |
| And speaks, his native rocks among, | |
| As Fingal spoke and Ossian sung. | 30 |
| Night fell; and dark and darker grew | |
| That narrow sea, that narrow sky, | |
| As o’er the glimmering waves we flew; | |
| The sea-bird rustling, wailing by, | |
| And now the grampus, half descried, | 35 |
| Black and huge above the tide; | |
| The cliffs and promontories there, | |
| Front to front, and broad and bare; | |
| Each beyond each, with giant feet | |
| Advancing as in haste to meet; | 40 |
| The shattered fortress, whence the Dane | |
| Blew his shrill blast, nor rushed in vain, | |
| Tyrant of the drear domain,— | |
| All into midnight shadow sweep, | |
| When day springs upward from the deep. | 45 |
| Kindling the waters in its flight, | |
| The prow wakes splendor; and the oar, | |
| That rose and fell unseen before, | |
| Flashes in a sea of light. | |
| Glad sign and sure! for now we hail | 50 |
| Thy flowers, Glenfinnart, in the gale; | |
| And bright indeed the path should be, | |
| That leads to friendship and to thee! | |
| O blest retreat and sacred too! | |
| Sacred as when the hell of prayer | 55 |
| Tolled duly on the desert air, | |
| And crosses decked thy summits blue. | |
| Oft, like some loved romantic tale, | |
| Oft shall my weary mind recall, | |
| Amid the hum and stir of men, | 60 |
| Thy beechen grove and waterfall, | |
| Thy ferry with its gliding sail, | |
| And her,—the Lady of the Glen! | |
| |
