By the outside I kenn'd that the inner was forsaken,
That nae tread o' footsteps was heard on the floor;
O loud craw'd the cock whare was nane to awaken,
And the wild raven croak'd on the seat by the door!
Sic silence-sic lonesomeness, oh, were bewildering!
I heard nae lass singing when herding her sheep; I met nae bright garlands o' wee rosy children
Dancing on to the schoolhouse just waken'd frae sleep.
I pass'd by the school-house-when strangers were coming,
Whase windows with glad faces seem'd all alive;
Ae moment I hearken'd, but heard nae sweet humming,
For a night o' dark vapour can silence the hive.
I pass'd by the pool where the lasses at daw'ing
Used to bleach their white garments wi' daffin and din;
But the foam in the silence o' nature was fa'ing,
And nae laughing rose loud through the roar of the linn.
I gaed into a small town-when sick o' my roaming-
Whare ance play'd the viol, the tabor, and flute;
"Twas the hour loved by labour, the saft smiling gloaming,
Yet the green round the Cross-stane was empty and mute.
To the yellow-flower'd meadow, and scant rigs o' tillage,
The sheep a' neglected had come frae the glen;
The cushat-dow coo'd in the midst o' the village;
And the swallow had flown to the dwellings of men!
Sweet Denholm! not thus, when I lived in thy bosom,
Thy heart lay so still the last night o' the week;
Then nane was sae weary that love would nae rouse him,
And grief gaed to dance with a laugh on his cheek.
Sic thoughts wet my een-as the moonshine was beaming
On the kirk-tower that rose up sae silent and white;
The wan ghastly light on the dial was streaming,
But the still finger tauld not the hour of the night.
The mirk-time pass'd slowly in siching and weeping,
I waken'd, and nature lay silent in mirth;
Ower a' holy Scotland the Sabbath was sleeping,
And heaven in beauty came down on the earth.
The morning smiled on but nae kirk-bell was ringing,
Nae plaid or blue bonnet came down frae the hill;
The kirk-door was shut, but nae psalm-tune was singing,
And I miss'd the wee voices sae sweet and sae shrill.
I look'd ower the quiet o' Death's empty dwelling,
The lav'rock walk'd mute 'mid the sorrowful scene,
And fifty brown hillocks wi' fresh mould were swelling
Ower the kirk-yard o' Denholm, last summer sae green,
The infant had died at the breast o' its mither;
The cradle stood still at the mitherless bed;
At play the bairn sunk in the hand o' its brither;
At the fauld on the mountain the shepherd lay dead.
Oh! in spring-time 'tis eerie, when winter is over,
And birds should be glinting ower forest and lea,
When the lintwhite and mavis the yellow leaves cover,
And nae blackbird sings loud frae the tap o' his tree.
But eerier far, when the spring-land rejoices,
And laughs back to heaven with gratitude bright; To hearken! and naewhere hear sweet human voices, When man's soul is dark in the season o' light!
O VALE of visionary rest!
-Hush'd as the grave it lies
With heaving banks of tenderest green,
Yet brightly, happily serene,
As cloud-vale of the sleepy west
Reposing on the skies.
Its reigning spirit may not vary—
What change can seasons bring
Unto so sweet, so calm a spot,
Where every loud and restless thing
Is like a far-off dream forgot?
Mild, gentle, mournful, solitary,
As if it aye were spring,
And Nature lov'd to witness here,
The still joys of the infant year,
'Mid flowers and music wandering glad,
For ever happy, yet for ever sad.
This little world how still and lone
With that horizon of its own!
And, when in silence falls the night,
With its own moon how purely bright!
No shepherd's cot is here-no shealing
Its verdant roof through trees revealing-
No branchy covert like a nest,
Where the weary woodmen rest,
And their jocund carols sing
O'er the fallen forest-king.
Inviolate by human hand
The fragrant white-stemm'd birch-trees stand,
With many a green and sunny glade
'Mid their embowering murmurs made
By gradual soft decay—
Where stealing to that little lawn
From secret haunt and half afraid,
The doe, in mute affection gay,
At close of eve leads forth her fawn
Amid the flowers to play.
And in that dell's soft bosom, lo!
Where smileth up a cheerful glow
Of water pure as air,
A tarn by two small streamlets spread
In beauty o'er its waveless bed,
Reflecting in that heaven so still,
The birch-grove mid-way up the hill,
And summits green and bare.
How lone! beneath its veil of dew
That morning's rosy fingers drew,
Seldom shepherd's foot hath prest
One primrose in its sunny rest.
The sheep at distance from the spring
May here her lambkins chance to bring,
Sporting with their shadows airy,
Each like tiny water fairy
Imaged in the lucid lake!
The hive-bee here doth sometimes make
Music, whose sweet murmurings tell
Of his shelter'd straw-roof'd cell,
Standing 'mid some garden gay,
Near a cottage far away.
By the lake-side, on a stone
Stands the heron all alone,
Still as any lifeless thing!
Slowly moves his laggard wing,
And cloud-like floating with the gale
Leaves at last the quiet vale.
THERE is a stream (I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist
Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books)
Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains,
Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, enveloped
Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample
Spreads, to convey it, the glen with heathery slopes on both sides:
Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls and narrows;
But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river,
Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite,
Scarce by a channel deep-cut, raging up, and raging onward,
Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step it.
There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden bridge goes,
Carrying a path to the forest; below, three hundred yards, say,
Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats of shingle,
Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley.
But in the interval here the boiling pent-up water
Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a basin,
Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury
Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror;
Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under;
Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam uprising
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness,
Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendant birch boughs,
Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway,
Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection.
You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water,
Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bathing.
A. H. Clough.
THE wind went forth o'er land and sea,
Loud and free;
Foaming waves leapt up to meet it,
Stately pines bowed down to greet it;
While the wailing sea
And the forest's murmured sigh
Of the wind that swept o'er land and sea.
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