| |
| BLUE are the hills above the Spey, | |
| The rocks are red that line his way; | |
| Green is the strath his waters lave, | |
| And fresh the turf upon the grave | |
| Where sleep my sire and sisters three, | 5 |
| Where none are left to mourn for me: | |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | |
| |
| The roofs that sheltered me and mine | |
| Hold strangers of a Sassenach line; | |
| Our hamlet thresholds ne’er can show | 10 |
| The friendly forms of long ago; | |
| The rooks upon the old yew-tree | |
| Would e’en have stranger notes to me: | |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | |
| |
| The cattle feeding on the hills, | 15 |
| We tended once o’er moors and rills, | |
| Like us have gone; the silly sheep | |
| Now fleck the brown sides of the steep, | |
| And southern eyes their watchers be, | |
| And Gael and Sassenach ne’er agree: | 20 |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | |
| |
| Where are the elders of our glen, | |
| Wise arbiters for meaner men? | |
| Where are the sportsmen, keen of eye, | |
| Who tracked the roe against the sky; | 25 |
| The quick of hand, of spirit free? | |
| Passed, like a harper’s melody: | |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | |
| |
| Where are the maidens of our vale, | |
| Those fair, frank daughters of the Gael? | 30 |
| Changed are they all, and changed the wife, | |
| Who dared for love the Indian’s life; | |
| The little child she bore to me | |
| Sunk in the vast Atlantic sea: | |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | 35 |
| |
| Bare are the moors of broad Strathspey, | |
| Shaggy the western forests gray; | |
| Wild is the corri’s autumn roar, | |
| Wilder the floods of this far shore; | |
| Dark are the crags of rushing Dee, | 40 |
| Darker the shades of Tennessee: | |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | |
| |
| Great rock, by which the Grant hath sworn, | |
| Since first amid the mountains born; | |
| Great rock, whose sterile granite heart | 45 |
| Knows not, like us, misfortune’s smart, | |
| The river sporting at thy knee, | |
| On thy stern brow no change can see: | |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | |
| |
| Stand fast on thine own Scottish ground, | 50 |
| By Scottish mountains flanked around, | |
| Though we, uprooted, cast away | |
| From the warm bosom of Strathspey, | |
| Flung pining by this western sea, | |
| The exile’s hopeless lot must dree: | 55 |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | |
| |
| Yet strong as thou the Grant shall rise, | |
| Cleft from his clansmen’s sympathies; | |
| In these grim wastes new homes we ’ll rear, | |
| New scenes shall wear old names so dear; | 60 |
| And while our axes fell the tree, | |
| Resound old Scotia’s minstrelsy: | |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | |
| |
| Here can no treacherous chief betray | |
| For sordid gain our new Strathspey; | 65 |
| No fearful king, no statesmen pale, | |
| Wrench the strong claymore from the Gael. | |
| With armed wrist and kilted knee, | |
| No prairie Indian half so free: | |
| Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie! | 70 |
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