| |
| AS on the banks o’ wandering Nith, | |
| Ae smiling simmer morn I stray’d, | |
| And traced its bonie howes and haughs, | |
| Where linties sang and lammies play’d, | |
| I sat me down upon a craig, | 5 |
| And drank my fill o’ fancy’s dream, | |
| When from the eddying deep below, | |
| Up rose the genius of the stream. | |
| |
| Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow, | |
| And troubled, like his wintry wave, | 10 |
| And deep, as sughs the boding wind | |
| Amang his caves, the sigh he gave— | |
| “And come ye here, my son,” he cried, | |
| “To wander in my birken shade? | |
| To muse some favourite Scottish theme, | 15 |
| Or sing some favourite Scottish maid? | |
| |
| “There was a time, it’s nae lang syne, | |
| Ye might hae seen me in my pride, | |
| When a’ my banks sae bravely saw | |
| Their woody pictures in my tide; | 20 |
| When hanging beech and spreading elm | |
| Shaded my stream sae clear and cool: | |
| And stately oaks their twisted arms | |
| Threw broad and dark across the pool; | |
| |
| “When, glinting thro’ the trees, appear’d | 25 |
| The wee white cot aboon the mill, | |
| And peacefu’ rose its ingle reek, | |
| That, slowly curling, clamb the hill. | |
| But now the cot is bare and cauld, | |
| Its leafy bield for ever gane, | 30 |
| And scarce a stinted birk is left | |
| To shiver in the blast its lane.” | |
| |
| “Alas!” quoth I, “what ruefu’ chance | |
| Has twin’d ye o’ your stately trees? | |
| Has laid your rocky bosom bare— | 35 |
| Has stripped the cleeding o’ your braes? | |
| Was it the bitter eastern blast, | |
| That scatters blight in early spring? | |
| Or was’t the wil’fire scorch’d their boughs, | |
| Or canker-worm wi’ secret sting?” | 40 |
| |
| “Nae eastlin blast,” the sprite replied; | |
| “It blaws na here sae fierce and fell, | |
| And on my dry and halesome banks | |
| Nae canker-worms get leave to dwell: | |
| Man! cruel man!” the genius sighed— | 45 |
| As through the cliffs he sank him down— | |
| “The worm that gnaw’d my bonie trees, | |
| That reptile wears a ducal crown.” 1 | |
