Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland Part 26

A fairyland of trees and leafy bowers Where one may sit and dream the hours away, Or 'mid the devious walks and alleys stray, While perfume rises from a world of flowers, The girdling river, swollen with upland showers, Sends rippling round to every creek and bay The vagrant branches of his water-way; Then gathering up his current's parted powers, Swiftly-majestic in a broadening bed, He glistens on by many a chiming spire, And past the castle's pennoned turrets red, Till he attain the goal of his desire, And into the salt sea exulting throws His subsidy of rains and melted snows.

XXI.

AMERICAN TOURIST LOQUITUR

(AT BERRIEDALE, CAITHNESS).

If I had wealth like Vanderbilt Or some such millionaire, I'd live in Scotland, don a kilt, And _pay to prove_ my forbears spilt Their blood in forays there.

I'd buy a picturesque estate Beside the ocean's flow, With knolls of heather at my gate, And pine-clad hills to dominate, The ferny dells below.

I'd be a father to the folk That laboured on the soil, With old and young I'd crack my joke, Drink with them in their thirst, and smoke The pipe that lightens toil.

For hens I'd have a special run, For ducks a special pool, My calves should frolic in the sun, My sheep should be surpa.s.sed by none Whose backs are clothed with wool.

Although I'm not a Walton quite, Betweenwhiles I should try To lure the finny tribe to bite (At the right time, in the right light,) My simulated fly.

When winter heaped his rattling hail High on the window sill, With pipe and wa.s.sail, rime and tale, I'd never miss the nightingale Or cuckoo on the hill.

Nay, musing by the ingle-lowe With summer in my brain, I'd cloth with leaves the frozen bough And all the ice-bound brooks endow With tinkling life again.[37]

[37] Berriedale, which moved the American to commemorative song, is on the Caithness sh.o.r.e, and there the Duke of Portland has one of his numerous residences. The Duke's seat is high up on the hills and behind it is a mountain of grim aspect which serves for a deer-forest. At Berriedale, the road traversed by the coach is simply appalling: boards marked _Dangerous_ forewarn all wheel-men that risks cannot be taken with impunity.

An honest descent can be easily coped with, but here the road to the glen is not merely steep, it is as lacking in straightforwardness as the links of Forth. Once down at the level of the village, the breeze no longer blows fresh and chilly, but subsides into a quiet air, grateful with the odour of flowers. Pa.s.sengers are requested to walk up the corresponding hill to a level equal to the height of the road before the interruption of the terrible Berriedale chasm. When the ascent is reached, one has a view of unsurpa.s.sed splendour.

The wooded Wye, which Wordsworth sang so rapturously and which he saw with his mind's eye in the dinsome town, has no landscape to compare in grandeur and beauty with the country round Berriedale, viewed from this eminence. Hills of richest green, diversified with purple heather; a back-ground of wild bog and mountain; blue sea; and great banks of cloud shepherded over the heights by the mighty winds.

XXII.

THE MINERS.

The afternoon is cool and calm, Near by flashes the mighty sea, Inland rise green, dewy hills, Crowned with eye-bewitching trees.

Suddenly the eye is amazed and terrified, A hideous procession sordid and grimy Of men and boys, slaves of the coal-pit, Is seen on the road, shaming the daylight.

All the day long they work in the darkness, Far from the songs of the birds and the sunshine, Now they return to their sordid villages, Ill-smelling rows of comfortless cottages.

The rich and dainty ladies of fashion Stand aloof from these swart coal-hewers, Are ready to swoon as the air is poisoned With odours of subterranean foulness.

Coa.r.s.e of look, and of speech far coa.r.s.er!

Laughter loud with no merriment in it!

No more soul than the beasts that perish!

These are the men despised for their toiling.

XXIII.

IN A COUNTRY GRAVEYARD.[38]

Man dreads the tomb, but dreads oblivion more; He fears, when death has loosed the load of years, His name shall cease to sound in mortal ears, And, in the dusty darkness, all be o'er.

Some o'er the scrolls of ample science pore, Tome after tome the nimble authors write, And gain a meed of glory: soon the night Comes: the author with his laurel disappears, The painting fades, the marble busts decay, The kingly structures fall in ruin down, Devouring Time consumes the artist's prize, The centuries like lightning pa.s.s away, Or hurrying billows: emperor and clown Sink with the myriads in impartial clay.

[38] Suggested by a French poem of Monsieur Desessarts, ent.i.tled _Se Survivre_.

XXIV.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME.

Where'er these wandering footsteps lead me to, Peak-dominated glen, hill where the sheep Graze in the sun, mountains that ever keep A solemn guard o'er lakes profound and blue, Or undulating tracts of treeless view; No matter if the rain and whirlwind sweep The landscape, or the gladdening sunshine peep Through m.u.f.fled vapours that the winds undo; Let it be night speckled with myriad fires, Clear dawn, hot noon, or cool of dying day; Be it in cities with their chiming spires, Or country fields with fragrant ricks of hay; Ever the voices of my hearth I hear, And muse on those to me for ever dear.