| |
| THOUGH Scotia hath a thousand scenes | |
| To strike the traveller’s eye, | |
| Clear-bosomed lakes, and leaping streams, | |
| And mountains bleak and high; | |
| Yet when he seeks his native clime | 5 |
| And ingle-side again, | |
| ’T would be a pity, had he missed | |
| To visit Hawthornden. | |
| |
| Down, down, precipitous and rude, | |
| The rocks abruptly go, | 10 |
| While through their deep and narrow gorge | |
| Foams on the Esk below; | |
| Yet though it plunges strong and bold, | |
| Its murmurs meet the ear, | |
| Like fretful childhood’s weak complaint, | 15 |
| Half smothered in its fear. | |
| |
| There ’s plenty, in my own dear land, | |
| Of cave and wild cascade, | |
| And all my early years were spent | |
| In such romantic glade; | 20 |
| And I could featly climb the cliff, | |
| Or forest roam and fen; | |
| But I ’ve been puzzled here among | |
| These rocks of Hawthornden. | |
| |
| Here, too, are labyrinthine paths | 25 |
| To caverns dark and low, | |
| Wherein, they say, King Robert Bruce | |
| Found refuge from his foe; | |
| And still amid their relics old | |
| His stalwart sword they keep, | 30 |
| Which telleth tales of cloven heads | |
| And gashes dire and deep; | |
| |
| While sculptured in the yielding stone | |
| Full many a niche they show, | |
| Where erst his library he stored | 35 |
| (The guide-boy told us so). | |
| Slight need had he of books, I trow, | |
| Mid hordes of savage men, | |
| And precious little time to read | |
| At leaguered Hawthornden. | 40 |
| |
| Loud pealing from those caverns drear, | |
| In old disastrous times, | |
| The Covenanters’ nightly hymn | |
| Upraised its startling chimes; | |
| Here too they stoutly stood at bay, | 45 |
| Or frowning sped along, | |
| To meet the high-born cavalier | |
| In conflict fierce and strong. | |
| |
| And here ’s the hawthorn-broidered nook, | |
| Where Drummond, not in vain, | 50 |
| Awaited his inspiring muse, | |
| And wooed her dulcet strain. | |
| And there ’s the oak, beneath whose shade | |
| He welcomed tuneful Ben, | |
| And still the memory of their words | 55 |
| Is nursed in Hawthornden. * * * * * | |
| |
