| |
| ERE yet dim twilight brightened into day, | |
| Or waned the silver morning star away, | |
| Shedding its last, lone, melancholy smile, | |
| Above the mountain-tops of far Argyll; | |
| Ere yet the solan’s wing had brushed the sea, | 5 |
| Or issued from its cell the mountain bee; | |
| As dawn beyond the orient Cumbraes shone, | |
| Thy northern slope, Byrone, | |
| From Ascog’s rocks, o’erflung with woodland bowers, | |
| With scarlet fuchsias, and faint myrtle flowers, | 10 |
| My steps essayed; brushing the diamond dew | |
| From the soft moss, lithe grass, and harebell blue. | |
| Up from the heath aslant the linnet flew | |
| Startled, and rose the lark on twinkling wing, | |
| And soared away, to sing | 15 |
| A farewell to the severing shades of night, | |
| A welcome to the morning’s earliest light. | |
| Thy summit gained, how tranquilly serene, | |
| Beneath, outspread that panoramic scene | |
| Of continent and isle, and lake and sea, | 20 |
| And tower and town, hill, vale, and spreading tree, | |
| And rock and ruin tinged with amethyst, | |
| Half seen, half hidden by the lazy mist, | |
| Volume on volume, which had vaguely wound | |
| The far-off hills around, | 25 |
| And now rolled downwards; till on high were seen, | |
| Begirt with sombre larch, their foreheads green. | |
| |
| There, there, when all except the lark was mute, | |
| O beauty-breathing Bute, | |
| On thee entranced I gazed; each moment brought | 30 |
| A new creation to the eye of thought: | |
| The orient clouds all Iris’ hues assumed, | |
| From the pale lily to the rose that bloomed, | |
| And hung above the pathway of the sun, | |
| As if to harbinger his course begun; | 35 |
| When, lo! his disk burst forth,—his beams of gold | |
| Seemed earth as with a garment to enfold, | |
| And from his piercing eye the loose mists flew, | |
| And heaven with arch of deep autumnal blue | |
| Glowed overhead; while ocean, like a lake, | 40 |
| Seeming delight to take | |
| In its own halcyon-calm, resplendent lay, | |
| From Western Kames to far Kilchattan bay. | |
| Old Largs looked out amid the orient light, | |
| With its gray dwellings, and, in greenery bright, | 45 |
| Lay Coila’s classic shores revealed to sight; | |
| And like a Vallombrosa, veiled in blue, | |
| Arose Mount-Stuart’s woodlands on the view; | |
| Kerry and Cowal their bold hill-tops showed, | |
| And Arran, and Kintyre; like rubies glowed | 50 |
| The jagged clefts of Goatfell; and below, | |
| As on a chart, delightful Rothesay lay, | |
| Whence sprang of human life the awakening sound, | |
| With all its happy dwellings, stretching round | |
| The semicircle of its sunbright bay. | 55 |
| |
| Byrone, a type of peace thou seemest now, | |
| Yielding thy ridges to the rustic plough, | |
| With cornfields at thy feet, and many a grove | |
| Whose songs are but of love; | |
| But different was the aspect of that hour | 60 |
| Which brought, of eld, the Norsemen o’er the deep, | |
| To wrest yon castle’s walls from Scotland’s power, | |
| And leave her brave to bleed, her fair to weep; | |
| When Husbac fierce, and Olave, Mona’s king, | |
| Confederate chiefs, with shout and triumphing, | 65 |
| Bade o’er its towers the Scaldic raven fly, | |
| And mock each storm-tost sea-king toiling by!— | |
| Far different were the days | |
| When flew the fiery cross, with summoning blaze, | |
| O’er Blane’s hill, and o’er Catan, and o’er Kames, | 70 |
| And round thy peak the phalanxed Butesmen stood, | |
| As Bruce’s followers shed the Baliol’s blood, | |
| Yea! gave each Saxon homestead to the flames! | |
| |
| Proud palace-home of kings! what art thou now? | |
| Worn are the traceries of thy lofty brow! | 75 |
| Yet once in beauteous strength like thee were none, | |
| When Rothesay’s Duke was heir to Scotland’s throne; | |
| Ere Falkland rose, or Holyrood, in thee | |
| The barons to their sovereign bowed the knee: | |
| Now, as to mock thy pride, | 80 |
| The very waters of thy moat are dried; | |
| Through fractured arch and doorway freely pass | |
| The sunbeams, into halls o’ergrown with grass; | |
| Thy floors, unroofed, are open to the sky, | |
| And the snows lodge there when the storm sweeps by; | 85 |
| O’er thy grim battlements, where bent the bow | |
| Thine archers keen, now hops the chattering crow; | |
| And where the beauteous and the brave were guests, | |
| Now breed the bats, the swallows build their nests! | |
| Lost even the legend of the bloody stair, | 90 |
| Whose steps went downward to thy house of prayer; | |
| Gone is the priest, and they who worshipped seem | |
| Phantoms to us,—a dream within a dream; | |
| Earth hath o’ermantled each memorial stone, | |
| And from their tombs the very dust is gone; | 95 |
| All perished, all forgotten, like the ray | |
| Which gilt yon orient hill-tops yesterday; | |
| All nameless, save mayhap one stalwart knight, | |
| Who fell with Græme in Falkirk’s bloody fight,— | |
| Bonkill’s stout Stewart, whose heroic tale | 100 |
| Oft circles yet the peasant’s evening fire, | |
| And how he scorned to fly, and how he bled,— | |
| He, whose effigies in St. Mary’s choir, | |
| With planted heel upon the lion’s head, | |
| Now rests in marble mail. | 105 |
| Yet still remains the small dark narrow room | |
| Where the third Robert, yielding to the gloom | |
| Of his despair, heart-broken, laid him down, | |
| Refusing food, to die; and to the wall | |
| Turned his determined face, unheeding all, | 110 |
| And to his captive boy-prince left his crown. | |
| Alas! thy solitary hawthorn-tree, | |
| Four-centuried, and o’erthrown, is but of thee | |
| A type, majestic ruin: there it lies, | |
| And annually puts on its Mayflower bloom, | 115 |
| To fill thy lonely precincts with perfume, | |
| Yet lifts no more its green head to the skies; | |
| The last lone living thing around that knew | |
| Thy glory, when the dizziness and din | |
| Of thronging life o’erflowed thy halls within, | 120 |
| And o’er thy top St. Andrew’s banner flew. | |
| |
| Farewell! Elysian island of the west, | |
| Still be thy gardens brightened by the rose | |
| Of a perennial spring, and winter’s snows | |
| Ne’er chill the warmth of thy maternal breast! | 125 |
| May calms forever sleep around thy coast, | |
| And desolating storms roll far away, | |
| While art with nature vies to form thy bay, | |
| Fairer than that which Naples makes her boast! | |
| Green link between the High lands and the Low,— | 130 |
| Thou gem, half claimed by earth and half by sea,— | |
| May blessings, like a flood, thy homes o’erflow, | |
| And health, though elsewhere lost, be found in thee! | |
| May thy bland zephyrs to the pallid cheek | |
| Of sickness ever roseate hues restore, | 135 |
| And they who shun the rabble and the roar | |
| Of the wild world on thy delightful shore | |
| Obtain that soft seclusion which they seek! | |
| Be this a stranger’s farewell, green Byrone, | |
| Who ne’er hath trod thy heathery heights before, | 140 |
| And ne’er may see thee more | |
| After yon autumn sun hath westering gone; | |
| Though oft, in pensive mood, when far away, | |
| Mid city multitudes, his thoughts will stray | |
| To Ascog’s lake, blue-sleeping in the morn, | 145 |
| And to the happy homesteads that adorn | |
| Thy Rothesay’s lovely bay. | |
| |
