Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
Islands of Scotland
By Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)M
She bounds before the gale,
The mountain breeze from Ben-nadarch
Is joyous in her sail!
With fluttering sound like laughter hoarse,
The cords and canvas strain,
The waves, divided by her force,
In rippling eddies chase her course,
As if they laughed again.
Not down the breeze more blithely flew,
Skimming the wave, the light sea-mew,
Than the gay galley bore
Her course upon that favoring wind,
And Coolin’s crest has sunk behind,
And Slapin’s caverned shore.
’T was then that warlike signals wake
Dunscaith’s dark towers and Eisord’s lake,
And soon, from Cavilgarrigh’s head
Thick wreaths of eddying smoke were spread;
A summons these of war and wrath
To the brave clans of Sleat and Strath,
And, ready at the sight,
Each warrior to his weapon sprung,
And targe upon his shoulder flung,
Impatient for the fight.
Mac-Kinnon’s chief, in warfare gray,
Had charge to muster their array,
And guide their barks to Brodick Bay.
Merrily, merrily goes the bark,
On a breeze from the northward free,
So shoots through the morning sky the lark,
Or the swan through the summer sea.
The shores of Mull on the eastward lay,
And Ulva dark, and Colonsay,
And all the group of islets gay
That guard famed Staffa round.
Then all unknown its columns rose,
Where dark and undisturbed repose
The cormorant had found,
And the shy seal had quiet home,
And weltered in that wondrous dome
Where, as to shame the temples decked
By skill of earthly architect,
Nature herself, it seemed, would raise
A Minster to her Maker’s praise!
Not for a meaner use ascend
Her columns, or her arches bend;
Nor of a theme less solemn tells
That mighty surge that ebbs and swells,
And still, between each awful pause,
From the high vault an answer draws,
In varied tone prolonged and high,
That mocks the organ’s melody.
Nor doth its entrance front in vain
To old Iona’s holy fane,
That Nature’s voice might seem to say,
“Well hast thou done, frail child of clay!
Thy humble powers that stately shrine
Tasked high and hard,—but witness mine!”
Before the gale she bounds;
So darts the dolphin from the shark,
Or the deer before the hounds.
They left Loch-Tua on their lee,
And they wakened the men of the wild Tiree,
And the chief of the sandy Coll;
They paused not at Columba’s isle,
Though pealed the bells from the holy pile
With long and measured toll;
No time for matin or for mass,
And the sounds of the holy summons pass
Away in the billows’ roll.
Lochbuie’s fierce and warlike Lord
Their signal saw, and grasped his sword,
And verdant Ilay called her host,
And the clans of Jura’s rugged coast
Lord Ronald’s call obey,
And Scarba’s isle, whose tortured shore
Still rings to Corrievreken’s roar,
And lonely Colonsay;—
Scenes sung by him who sings no more!
His bright and brief career is o’er,
And mute his tuneful strains;
Quenched is his lamp of varied lore,
That loved the light of song to pour;
A distant and a deadly shore
Has Leyden’s cold remains!