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| MY beauteous corri! where cattle wander,— | |
| My misty corri! my darling dell! | |
| Mighty, verdant, and covered over | |
| With wild-flowers tender of sweetest smell; | |
| Dark is the green of thy grassy clothing, | 5 |
| Soft swell thy hillocks most green and deep, | |
| The cannach blowing, the darnel growing, | |
| While the deer troop passed to the misty steep. | |
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| Fine for wear is thy beauteous mantle, | |
| Strongly woven and ever new, | 10 |
| With rough grass o’er it, and, brightly gleaming, | |
| The grass all spangled with diamond dew; | |
| It ’s round my corri, my lovely corri, | |
| Where rushes thicken and long reeds blow; | |
| Fine were the harvest to any reaper | 15 |
| Who through the marsh and the bog could go. | |
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| Ah, that ’s fine clothing!—a great robe stretching, | |
| A grassy carpet most smooth and green, | |
| Painted and fed by the rain from heaven | |
| In hues the bravest that man has seen,— | 20 |
| ’Twixt here and Paris I do not fancy | |
| A finer raiment can ever be,— | |
| May it grow forever! and, late and early, | |
| May I be here on the knolls to see! | |
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| Around Ruadh-Arisidh what ringlets cluster! | 25 |
| Fair, long, and crested, and closely twined, | |
| This way and that they are lightly waving | |
| At every breath of the mountain wind. | |
| The twisted hemlock, the slanted rye-grass, | |
| The juicy moor-grass, can all be found; | 30 |
| And the close-set groundsel is greenly growing | |
| By the wood where heroes are sleeping sound. | |
| |
| In yonder ruin once dwelt MacBhaidi, | |
| ’T is now a desert where winds are shrill; | |
| Yet the well-shaped brown ox is feeding by it, | 35 |
| Among the stones that bestrew the hill. | |
| How fine to see, both in light and gloaming, | |
| The smooth Clach-Fionn, so still and deep, | |
| And the houseless cattle and calves most peaceful, | |
| Grouped on the brow of the lonely steep. | 40 |
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| In every nook of the mountain pathway | |
| The garlic-flower may be thickly found; | |
| And out on the sunny slopes around it | |
| Hang berries juicy, and red, and round; | |
| The pennyroyal and dandelion, | 45 |
| The downy cannach, together lie,— | |
| Thickly they grow from the base of the mountain | |
| To the topmost crag of his crest so high. | |
| |
| And not a crag but is clad most richly, | |
| For rich and silvern the soft moss clings; | 50 |
| Fine is the moss, most clean and stainless, | |
| Hiding the look of unlovely things; | |
| Down in the hollows beneath the summit, | |
| Where the verdure is growing most rich and deep, | |
| The little daisies are looking upward, | 55 |
| And the yellow primroses often peep. * * * * * | |
| And sweet it was, when the white sun glimmered, | |
| Listening under the crag to stand, | |
| And hear the moor-hen so hoarsely croaking, | |
| And the red-cock murmuring close at hand; | 60 |
| While the little wren blew his tiny trumpet, | |
| And threw his steam off blithe and strong, | |
| While the speckled thrush and the redbreast gayly | |
| Lilted together a pleasant song! | |
| |
| Not a singer but joined the chorus, | 65 |
| Not a bird in the leaves was still. | |
| First the laverock, that famous singer, | |
| Led the music with throat so shrill; | |
| From tall tree branches the blackbird whistled, | |
| And the gray-bird joined with his sweet “coo-coo”; | 70 |
| Everywhere was the blithesome chorus, | |
| Till the glen was murmuring through and through. | |
| |
| Then out of the shelter of every corri | |
| Came forth the creature whose home is there: | |
| First, proudly stepping, with branching antlers, | 75 |
| The snorting red-deer forsook his lair; | |
| Through the sparkling fern he rushed rejoicing, | |
| Or gently played by his heart’s delight; | |
| The hind of the mountain, the sweet brown princess, | |
| So fine, so dainty, so staid, so slight! | 80 |
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| Under the light green branches creeping | |
| The brown doe cropt the leaves unseen, | |
| While the proud buck gravely stared around him, | |
| And stamped his feet on his couch of green; | |
| Smooth and speckled, with soft pink nostrils, | 85 |
| With beauteous head, lay the tiny kid; | |
| All apart in the dewy rushes, | |
| Sleeping unseen in its nest, ’t was hid. | |
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| My beauteous corri! my misty corri! | |
| What light feet trod thee in joy and pride, | 90 |
| What strong hands gathered thy precious treasures, | |
| What great hearts leaped on thy craggy side! | |
| Soft and round was the nest they plundered, | |
| Where the brindled bee his honey hath,— | |
| The speckled bee that flies, softly humming, | 95 |
| From flower to flower of the lonely strath. | |
| |
| There thin-skinned, smooth, in clustering bunches, | |
| With sweetest kernels as white as cream, | |
| From branches green the sweet juice drawing, | |
| The nuts were growing beside the stream— | 100 |
| And the stream went dancing merrily onward, | |
| And the ripe, red rowan was on its brim, | |
| And gently there, in the wind of morning, | |
| The new-leaved sapling waved soft and slim. | |
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| And all around the lovely corri | 105 |
| The wild-birds sat on their nests so neat, | |
| In deep, warm nooks and tufts of heather, | |
| Sheltered by knolls from the wind and sleet; | |
| And there from their beds, in the dew of the morning, | |
| Uprose the doe and the stag of ten, | 110 |
| And the tall cliffs gleamed, and the morning reddened | |
| The Coire Cheathaich,—the Misty Glen! | |
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