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I. AS we had been in heart, now linked in hand, | |
| Green Learmonth and the Cheviots left behind, | |
| Homeward ’t was ours by pastoral Tweed to wind, | |
| Through the Arcadia of the Borderland: | |
| Vainly would words portray my feelings, when | 5 |
| (A dreary chasm of separation past) | |
| Fate gave thee to my vacant arms at last, | |
| And made me the most happy man of men. | |
| Accept these trifles, lovely and beloved, | |
| And haply, in the days of future years, | 10 |
| While the far past to memory reappears, | |
| Thou may’st retrace these tablets not unmoved, | |
| Catherine! whose holy constancy was proved | |
| By all that deepest tries, and most endears. | |
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II.
WARK CASTLE
EMBLEM of strength, which time hath quite subdued, | 15 |
| Scarcely on thy green mount the eye may trace | |
| Those girding walls which made thee once a place | |
| Of succor, in old days of deadly feud. | |
| Yes! thou wert once the Scotch marauder’s dread; | |
| And vainly did the Roxburgh shafts assail | 20 |
| Thy moated towers, from which they fell like hail; | |
| While waved Northumbria’s pennon o’er thy head. | |
| Thou wert the work of man, and so hast passed | |
| Like those who piled thee; but the features still | |
| Of steadfast nature all unchanged remain; | 25 |
| Still Cheviot listens to the northern blast, | |
| And the blue Tweed winds murmuring round thy hill; | |
| While Carham whispers of the slaughtered Dane. | |
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III.
DRYBURGH ABBEY
BENEATH, Tweed murmured amid the forests green: | |
| And through thy beech-tree and laburnum boughs, | 30 |
| A solemn ruin, lovely in repose, | |
| Dryburgh! thine ivied walls were grayly seen: | |
| Thy court is now a garden, where the flowers | |
| Expand in silent beauty, and the bird, | |
| Flitting from arch to arch, alone is heard | 35 |
| To cheer with song the melancholy bowers. | |
| Yet did a solemn pleasure fill the soul, | |
| As through thy shadowy cloistral cells we trode, | |
| To think, hoar pile! that once thou wert the abode | |
| Of men, who could to solitude control | 40 |
| Their hopes,—yea! from ambition’s pathways stole, | |
| To give their whole lives blamelessly to God! | |
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IV.
MELROSE ABBEY
SUMMER was on thee,—the meridian light, | |
| And, as we wandered through thy columned aisles, | |
| Decked all thy hoar magnificence with smiles, | 45 |
| Making the rugged soft, the gloomy bright. | |
| Nor was reflection from us far apart, | |
| As clomb our steps thy lone and lofty stair, | |
| Till, gained the summit, ticked in silent air | |
| Thine ancient clock, as ’t were thy throbbing heart. | 50 |
| Monastic grandeur and baronial pride | |
| Subdued,—the former half, the latter quite, | |
| Pile of King David! to thine altar’s site, | |
| Full many a footstep guides and long shall guide; | |
| Where they repose, who met not, save in fight,— | 55 |
| And Douglas sleeps with Evers, side by side! | |
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V.
ABBOTSFORD
THE CALM of evening o’er the dark pine-wood | |
| Lay with an aureate glow, as we explored | |
| Thy classic precincts, hallowed Abbotsford! | |
| And at thy porch in admiration stood: | 60 |
| We felt thou wert the work, th’ abode of him | |
| Whose fame hath shed a lustre on our age, | |
| The mightiest of the mighty!—o’er whose page | |
| Thousands shall hang, until Time’s eye grow dim; | |
| And then we thought, when shall have passed away | 65 |
| The millions now pursuing life’s career, | |
| And Scott himself is dust, how, lingering here, | |
| Pilgrims from all the lands of earth shall stray | |
| Amid thy cherished ruins, and survey | |
| The scenes around, with reverential fear! | 70 |
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VI.
NIDPATH CASTLE
STERN, rugged pile! thy scowl recalls the days | |
| Of foray and of feud, when, long ago, | |
| Homes were thought worthy of reproach or praise | |
| Only as yielding safeguards from the foe: | |
| Over thy gateways the armorial arms | 75 |
| Proclaim of doughty Douglases, who held | |
| Thy towers against the foe, and thence repelled | |
| Oft, after efforts vain, invasion’s harms. | |
| Eve dimmed the hills, as, by the Tweed below, | |
| We sat where once thy blossomy orchards smiled, | 80 |
| And yet where many an apple-tree grows wild, | |
| Listening the blackbird, and the river’s flow; | |
| While, high between us and the sunset glow, | |
| Thy giant walls seemed picturesquely piled. | |
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VII.
“THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR”
AS speaks the sea-shell from the window-sill | 85 |
| Of cottage-home, far inland, to the soul | |
| Of the bronzed veteran, till he hears the roll | |
| Of ocean mid its islands chafing still; | |
| As speaks the love-gift to the lonely heart | |
| Of her whose hopes are buried in the grave | 90 |
| Of him whom tears, prayer, passion, could not save, | |
| And Fate but linked that Death might tear apart,— | |
| So speaks the ancient melody of thee, | |
| Green “Bush aboon Traquair,” that from the steep | |
| O’erhang’st the Tweed until, mayhap afar, | 95 |
| In realms beyond the separating sea, | |
| The plaided exile, ’neath the evening star, | |
| Thinking of Scotland, scarce forbears to weep! | |
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