Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

183 . Verses Written with a Pencil at the Inn at Kenmore

ADMIRING Nature in her wildest grace,

These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;

O’er many a winding dale and painful steep,

Th’ abodes of covey’d grouse and timid sheep,

My savage journey, curious, I pursue,

Till fam’d Breadalbane opens to my view.—

The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,

The woods wild scatter’d, clothe their ample sides;

Th’ outstretching lake, imbosomed ’mong the hills,

The eye with wonder and amazement fills;

The Tay meand’ring sweet in infant pride,

The palace rising on his verdant side,

The lawns wood-fring’d in Nature’s native taste,

The hillocks dropt in Nature’s careless haste,

The arches striding o’er the new-born stream,

The village glittering in the noontide beam—

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Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,

Lone wand’ring by the hermit’s mossy cell;

The sweeping theatre of hanging woods,

Th’ incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods—

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Here Poesy might wake her heav’n-taught lyre,

And look through Nature with creative fire;

Here, to the wrongs of Fate half reconcil’d,

Misfortunes lighten’d steps might wander wild;

And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,

Find balm to soothe her bitter, rankling wounds:

Here heart-struck Grief might heav’nward stretch her scan,

And injur’d Worth forget and pardon man.
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