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* * * * * EDINA, high in heaven wan, | |
| Towered, templed, Metropolitan, | |
| Waited upon by hills, | |
| River, and wide-spread ocean,—tinged | |
| By April light, or draped and fringed | 5 |
| As April vapor wills, | |
| Thou hangest, like a Cyclop’s dream, | |
| High in the shifting weather-gleam. | |
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| Fair art thou when above thy head | |
| The mistless firmament is spread; | 10 |
| But when the twilight’s screen | |
| Draws glimmering round thy towers and spires, | |
| And thy lone bridge, uncrowned by fires, | |
| Hangs in the dim ravine, | |
| Thou art a very Persian tale,— | 15 |
| Or Mirza’s vision, Bagdad’s vale! | |
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| The spring-time stains with emerald | |
| Thy castle’s precipices bald; | |
| Within thy streets and squares | |
| The sudden summer camps, and blows | 20 |
| The plenteous chariot-shaken rose; | |
| Or, lifting unawares | |
| My eyes from out thy central strife, | |
| Lo, far off, harvest-brazen Fife! | |
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| When, raindrops gemming tree and plant, | 25 |
| The rainbow is thy visitant, | |
| Lovely as on the moors; | |
| When sunset flecks with loving ray | |
| Thy wilderness of gables gray, | |
| And hoary embrasures; | 30 |
| When great Sir Walter’s moon-blanched shrine, | |
| Rich carved, as Melrose, gleams divine, | |
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| I know thee; and I know thee, too, | |
| On winter nights, when ’gainst the blue | |
| Thy high, gloom-wildered ridge | 35 |
| Breaks in a thousand splendors; lamps | |
| Gleam broadly in the valley damps; | |
| Thy air-suspended bridge | |
| Shines steadfast; and the modern street | |
| Looks on, star-fretted, loud with feet. * * * * * | 40 |
| Fair art thou, City, to the eye, | |
| But fairer to the memory: | |
| There is no place that breeds— | |
| Not Venice ’neath her mellow moons, | |
| When the sea-pulse of full lagoons | 45 |
| Waves all her palace weeds— | |
| Such wistful thoughts of far away, | |
| Of the eternal yesterday. | |
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| Within thy high-piled Canongate | |
| The air is of another date; | 50 |
| All speaks of ancient time: | |
| Traces of gardens, dials, wells, | |
| Thy dizzy gables, oyster-shells | |
| Imbedded in the lime,— | |
| Thy shields above the doors of peers | 55 |
| Are old as Mary Stuart’s tears. | |
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| Street haunted by the step of Knox; | |
| Darnley’s long, heavy-scented locks; | |
| Ruthven’s blood-freezing stare: | |
| Dark Murray, dreaming of the crown,— | 60 |
| His ride through fair Linlithgow town, | |
| And the man waiting there | |
| With loaded fuse, undreamed of,—wiles | |
| Of Mary, and her mermaid smiles! | |
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| Thou saw’st Montrose’s passing face | 65 |
| Shame-strike the gloating silk and lace, | |
| And jeering plumes that filled | |
| The balcony o’erhead; with pride | |
| Thou saw’st Prince Charles bareheaded ride, | |
| While bagpipes round him shrilled, | 70 |
| And far Culloden’s smoky racks | |
| Hid scaffold craped, and bloody axe. | |
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| What wine hast thou known brawl-bespilt! | |
| What daggers ruddy to the hilt! | |
| What stately minuets | 75 |
| Walked slowly o’er thy oaken floors! | |
| What hasty kisses at thy doors! | |
| What banquetings and bets! | |
| What talk, o’er man that lives and errs, | |
| Of doubled-chinned philosophers! | 80 |
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| Great City, every morning I | |
| See thy wild fringes in the sky, | |
| Soft-blurred with smoky grace; | |
| Each evening note the blazing sun | |
| Flush luridly thy vapors dun,— | 85 |
| A spire athwart his face; | |
| Each night I watch thy wondrous feast, | |
| Like some far city of the East. | |
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| But most I love thee faint and fair, | |
| Dim-pencilled in the April air, | 90 |
| When in the dewy bush | |
| I hear from budded thicks remote | |
| The rapture of the blackbird’s throat, | |
| The sweet note of the thrush; | |
| And all is shadowless and clear | 95 |
| In the uncolored atmosphere. * * * * * | |
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