| |
| UPROSE the sun through opening clouds of gray, | |
| And at his touch the misty hills unveiled, | |
| And all gave promise of a glorious day | |
| As up the Firth we sailed. | |
| |
| At every step he took, the upper clouds | 5 |
| Thinned into gauze; the wakening morn looked through | |
| And soon, withdrawing e’en her gauzy shrouds, | |
| Came forth in radiant blue. | |
| |
| A rippling breeze was with us, just enough | |
| To turn the waters into crisping curls; | 10 |
| You could not say the Firth was calm or rough,— | |
| It danced in crested pearls. | |
| |
| Along the rocky ribs of Galloway | |
| A margin of white foam crept to and fro; | |
| And up the steep cliffs rose the snowy spray, | 15 |
| Silent to us as snow. | |
| |
| Then into view swung Ailsa Craig’s huge bulk, | |
| And raised an old-world rapture in the blood; | |
| Far off it loomed like some great stranded hulk, | |
| Left there by Noah’s flood. | 20 |
| |
| As we approached, our paltry tongues were stilled, | |
| The bold sky-pictured craig stood more defined; | |
| We sailed within a presence now that filled, | |
| And e’en distressed, the mind. | |
| |
| Round its sun-burnished peak the seabirds flew | 25 |
| In idle numbers, never to be told; | |
| They wheeled and slid across the skyey blue, | |
| Like sunbeam-specks of gold. | |
| |
| And still we strove the mighty rock to clasp, | |
| “As one big grandeur,” all unto the breast; | 30 |
| Its greatness only mocked our feeble grasp, | |
| And on we sailed distressed. | |
| |
| Along our starboard lay the Carrick shore, | |
| And Kyle, the classic, hid in warm white haze; | |
| However hid, revealed forevermore | 35 |
| To the poetic gaze: | |
| |
| The bonnie Doon, and Cassilis Downan’s green, | |
| The “Twa Brigs,” flyting almost side by side, | |
| The ancient town of Ayr, and scene by scene | |
| Of Tam O’Shanter’s ride. | 40 |
| |
| And on our left lay Arran, sharp and clear, | |
| Its Holy Isle and hidden loch behind, | |
| Within whose reaches ships for shelter steer, | |
| When storms are in the wind. | |
| |
| But Goatfell, with the tattered Arran peaks, | 45 |
| Took all our eyes, piled up so sheer and high: | |
| ’T was Nature’s easel,—this her freak of freaks, | |
| Her canvas the blue sky. | |
| |
| A sudden cloud came o’er them, and anon | |
| The Arran hills in dark-blue blackness lay; | 50 |
| Surely not all the Highlands can put on | |
| So grim a scowl as they! | |
| |
| They were alive with passion; we beheld | |
| Their knitting eyebrows and their gleaming eyes; | |
| But soon their dark brows lifted, and they smiled | 55 |
| Grandly at our surprise. | |
| |
| Then, also on our left, the Isle of Bute; | |
| So like to what a paradise should be, | |
| That all declared the name would better suit | |
| With an accented é. | 60 |
| |
| There Kean, the tragic, built himself a cot | |
| Beside its little lake, a sylvan scene, | |
| And thought to cast in solitude his lot: | |
| Alas for tragic Kean! | |
| |
| As well expect the lion to turn a hound, | 65 |
| The eagle to forget the soaring wing; | |
| He came to Bute and solitude, but found | |
| The play was still the thing. | |
| |
| Upon our right the Cumbraes, sister isles, | |
| Were passed with small remark, though fairy splores, | 70 |
| And devil-builded dikes, and warlock wiles | |
| Are rife about their shores. | |
| |
| Then landward Largs, with its old battle-field, | |
| Where Alexander fought the invading Dane, | |
| And made him the last hope of conquest yield, | 75 |
| Never to come again. | |
| |
| But all around us beauty infinite, | |
| And history, and old tradition vied | |
| Which should be minister of most delight, | |
| And preached from side to side; | 80 |
| |
| Till Greenock’s noisy piers lay on our beam, | |
| And luggage dragged us back to common earth, | |
| And finger-pointing porters broke our dream | |
| Of sailing up the Firth. | |
| |
