| |
| 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 | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| ’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, | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| |
| 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 | 45 |
| Speak true, and darker chance obtain, | |
| Bless with one tear my final rest, | |
| One memory from the Roebuck Glen. | |
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