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(From The Lord of the Isles)
AWHILE their route they silent made, | |
| As men who stalk for mountain-deer, | |
| Till the good Bruce to Ronald said, | |
| “Saint Mary! what a scene is here! | |
| I ’ve traversed many a mountain-strand, | 5 |
| Abroad and in my native land, | |
| And it has been my lot to tread | |
| Where safety more than pleasure led; | |
| Thus many a waste I ’ve wandered o’er, | |
| Clomb many a crag, crossed many a moor, | 10 |
| But, by my halidome, | |
| A scene so rude, so wild as this, | |
| Yet so sublime in barrenness, | |
| Ne’er did my wandering footsteps press, | |
| Where’er I happed to roam.” | 15 |
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| No marvel thus the Monarch spake; | |
| For rarely human eye has known | |
| A scene so stern as that dread lake, | |
| With its dark ledge of barren stone. | |
| Seems that primeval earthquake’s sway | 20 |
| Hath rent a strange and shattered way | |
| Through the rude bosom of the hill, | |
| And that each naked precipice, | |
| Sable ravine, and dark abyss, | |
| Tells of the outrage still. | 25 |
| The wildest glen, but this, can show | |
| Some touch of nature’s genial glow; | |
| On high Benmore green mosses grow, | |
| And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe, | |
| And copse on Cruchan-Ben; | 30 |
| But here,—above, around, below, | |
| On mountain or in glen, | |
| Nor tree nor shrub nor plant nor flower, | |
| Nor aught of vegetative power, | |
| The weary eye may ken; | 35 |
| For all is rocks at random thrown, | |
| Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone, | |
| As if were here denied | |
| The summer sun, the spring’s sweet dew, | |
| That clothe with many a varied hue | 40 |
| The bleakest mountain-side. | |
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| And wilder, forward as they wound, | |
| Were the proud cliffs and lake profound. | |
| Huge terraces of granite black | |
| Afforded rude and cumbered track; | 45 |
| For from the mountain hoar, | |
| Hurled headlong in some night of fear, | |
| When yelled the wolf and fled the deer, | |
| Loose crags had toppled o’er; | |
| And some, chance-poised and balanced, lay | 50 |
| So that a stripling arm might sway | |
| A mass no host could raise, | |
| In Nature’s rage at random thrown, | |
| Yet trembling like the Druid’s stone | |
| On its precarious base. | 55 |
| The evening mists, with ceaseless change, | |
| Now clothed the mountains’ lofty range, | |
| Now left their foreheads bare, | |
| And round the skirts their mantle furled, | |
| Or on the sable waters curled, | 60 |
| Or on the eddying breezes whirled, | |
| Dispersed in middle air. | |
| And oft, condensed, at once they lower, | |
| When, brief and fierce, the mountain shower | |
| Pours like a torrent down, | 65 |
| And when return the sun’s glad beams, | |
| Whitened with foam a thousand streams | |
| Leap from the mountain’s crown. | |
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| “This lake,” said Bruce, “whose barriers drear | |
| Are precipices sharp and sheer, | 70 |
| Yielding no track for goat or deer, | |
| Save the black shelves we tread, | |
| How term you its dark waves? and how | |
| Yon northern mountain’s pathless brow, | |
| And yonder peak of dread, | 75 |
| That to the evening sun uplifts | |
| The griesly gulfs and slaty rifts, | |
| Which seam its shivered head?” | |
| “Coriskin call the dark lake’s name, | |
| Coolin the ridge, as bards proclaim, | 80 |
| From old Cuchullin, chief of fame. | |
| But bards, familiar in our isles | |
| Rather with Nature’s frowns than smiles, | |
| Full oft their careless humors please | |
| By sportive names from scenes like these. | 85 |
| I would old Torquil were to show | |
| His maidens with their breasts of snow, | |
| Or that my noble Liege were nigh | |
| To hear his Nurse sing lullaby! | |
| (The Maids,—tall cliffs with breakers white, | 90 |
| The Nurse,—a torrent’s roaring might,) | |
| Or that your eye could see the mood | |
| Of Corryvrekin’s whirlpool rude, | |
| When dons the Hag her whitened hood,— | |
| ’T is thus our islesmen’s fancy frames, | 95 |
| For scenes so stern, fantastic names.” | |
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| Answered the Bruce, “And musing mind | |
| Might here a graver moral find. | |
| These mighty cliffs, that heave on high | |
| Their naked brows to middle sky, | 100 |
| Indifferent to the sun or snow, | |
| Where naught can fade and naught can blow, | |
| May they not mark a monarch’s fate,— | |
| Raised high mid storms of strife and state, | |
| Beyond life’s lowlier pleasures placed, | 105 |
| His soul a rock, his heart a waste? | |
| O’er hope and love and fear aloft | |
| High rears his crownéd head. But soft! | |
| Look, underneath yon jutting crag | |
| Are hunters and a slaughtered stag. | 110 |
| Who may they be? But late you said | |
| No steps these desert regions tread!” | |
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