Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Glenarbac

A Farewell to Glenarbac

By Arthur Henry Hallam (1811–1833)

WHEN grief is felt along the blood,

And checks the breath with sighs unsought,

’T is then that Memory’s power is wooed

To soothe by ancient forms of thought.

It is not much, yet in that day

Will seem a gladsome wakening;

And such to me, in joy’s decay,

The memory of the Roebuck Glen.

Nor less, when fancies have their bent,

And eager passion sweeps the mind;

’T will bless to catch a calm content,

From happy moment far behind.

O, it is of a heavenly brood

That chastening recollection!

And such to me, in joyous mood,

The memory of the Roebuck Glen.

I grieve to quit this lime-tree walk,

The Clyde, the Leven’s milder blue

To lose, yon craigs that nest the hawk

Will soar no longer in my view.

Yet of themselves small power to move

Have they: their light ’s a borrowed thing

Won from her eyes, for whom I love

The memory of the Roebuck Glen.

O, dear to nature, not in vain

The mountain winds have breathed on thee!

Mild virtues of a noble strain,

And beauty making pure and free,

Pass to thee from the silent hills;

And hence, where’er thy sojourning,

Thine eye with gentle weeping fills

At memory of the Roebuck Glen.

Thou speedest to the sunny shore,

Where first thy presence on me shone;

Alas! I know not whether more

These eyes shall claim thee as their own:

But should a kindly star prevail,

And should we meet far hence again,

How sweet in other lands to hail

The memory of the Roebuck Glen.

O, when the thought comes o’er my heart

Of happy meetings yet to be,

The very feeling that thou art

Is deep as that of life to me;

Yet should sad instinct in my breast

Speak true, and darker chance obtain,

Bless with one tear my final rest,

One memory from the Roebuck Glen.