AT THE FOOT O' BENNACHIE.

"The hills were round them, and the breezeWent o'er the sun-lit fields again;Their foreheads felt the wind and rain."

Let the modern reader go through theRape of the Lock, and then take up the song of the hunter Shilric from Macpherson's "Carric-thura."

Shilric, not knowing that his love Vinvela is dead, thus communes with himself:

"I sit by the mossy mountain; on the top of the hill of winds. One tree is rustling above me. Dark waves roll over the heath. The lake is troubled below. The deer descend from the hill. No hunter at a distance is seen.It is mid-day; but all is silent. Sad are my thoughts alone. Didst thou but appear, O my love! a wanderer on the heath! thy hair floating on the wind behind thee; thy bosom heaving on the sight; thine eyes full of tears for thy friends, whom the mist of the hill had concealed! Thee I would comfort, my love, and bring thee to thy father's house!"

To him mourning thus, the spirit of his dead love appears:

"But is it she that there appears, like a beam of light on the heath? bright as the moon in autumn, as the sun in a summer-storm, comest thou, O maid, over rocks, over mountains to me? She speaks: but how weak her voice! like the breeze in the reeds of the lake."'Alone I am, O Shilric! alone in the winter-house. With grief for thee I fell. Shilric, I am pale in the tomb.'"She fleets, she sails away; as mist before the wind! and wilt thou not stay, Vinvela? Stay and behold my tears! fair thou appearest, Vinvela! fair thou wast, when alive!"By the mossy mountain I will sit; on the top of the hill of winds. When mid-day is silent around, O talk with me, Vinvela! come on the light-winged gale! on the breeze of the desert, come! Let me hear thy voice, as thou passest, when mid-day is silent around.'"

"'Alone I am, O Shilric! alone in the winter-house. With grief for thee I fell. Shilric, I am pale in the tomb.'

"She fleets, she sails away; as mist before the wind! and wilt thou not stay, Vinvela? Stay and behold my tears! fair thou appearest, Vinvela! fair thou wast, when alive!

"By the mossy mountain I will sit; on the top of the hill of winds. When mid-day is silent around, O talk with me, Vinvela! come on the light-winged gale! on the breeze of the desert, come! Let me hear thy voice, as thou passest, when mid-day is silent around.'"

The readers of the eighteenth century did not stay to consider whether the foregoing was, or was not, a genuine antique: it suited their taste admirably. Rousseau had brought sentimentalism into favour; the "return to nature" was a kind of creed with the Frenchphilosophers: these facts aided greatly in causing the epidemic of Ossianism that overran Europe.

I should not like to be condemned to read nothing but Ossian for a year. The short staccato sentences, the difficulty of getting hold of anything definite amid so many moonbeams, gliding ghosts, whistling reeds, and feasts of shells, has a very debilitating effect on the mind. There is too much weeping: one is constantly saying with Tennyson, "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean." Yet, no one can dip into Macpherson without being rewarded by some phrase of an impressive or refreshing kind,e.g.:—

"Thou art with the years that are gone; thou fadest on my soul."

"Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days?"

"Her steps were like the music of songs; she saw the youth and loved him. He was the stolen sigh of her soul."

"Why does Ossian sing? Soon shall he lie in the narrow house, and no bard shall raise his fame."

"When shall it be morn in the grave to bid the slumberer wake?"

"Mixed with the murmur of waters rose the voice of aged men, who called the forms of night to aid them in the war."

"Autumn is dark on the mountains; grey mist rests on the hills."

I have on several occasions, during the last year or two, visited that part of Aberdeenshire which is immediately under the glorious ridge of Bennachie. Like alllovers of ballad lore, I know by heart the poem of the little wee man who had such prowess, and who invited the poet to go with him to his green bower. After seeing magnificent examples of dancing, the poet found himself lying in the mist at the foot of Bennachie:—

"Out went the lichts, on cam' the mist,Leddies nor mannie mair could I see;I turned aboot, and gave a look,I was just at the foot o' Bennachie."

The exquisite little ballad from which I quote is calculated to raise expectations of beauty which the picturesque surroundings of Bennachie are well able to satisfy. Great tracts of Aberdeenshire are flat, treeless, and painful in their monotony; in winter, great gusts sweep the cold plains, and make driving or walking a trying ordeal; the country is thinly peopled, and the impression of the visitor is that, in some districts, railway stations are more numerous than villages. Round Bennachie, however, the scenery is most pleasant and picturesque. The villages of Oyne and Insch, in which hospitality to strangers is a religion, are beautifully placed and well-foliaged all around. The region is, indeed, one of romance, and the little brook of Gadie ripples on in the radiance and glamour of pathetic song.

Those who consider, like Ruskin, that the stories of the past add no inconsiderable item to the beauty of a landscape, as it appears to the eye and intelligence of modern observers, will not fail to remember the momentous issues decided at no great distance from the foot ofBennachie, in 1411. Teutonic and Celtic Scotland came to grips at Harlaw, near by:—

"The Hielandmen, wi' their lang swords,They laid on us fu' sair;And they drave back our merry menThree acres' breadth and mair.. . . . . . . . . .Gin anybody speer at yeFor them we took awa',Ye may tell them plain and very plain,They're sleeping at Harlaw."

Burton, in hisHistory of Scotland, declares that the check given to Donald of the Isles at Harlaw, was a greater relief to Scotland than even Bannockburn was. If the Stuart kings, hard pressed as they were by England on the south, had been threatened by a formidable Celtic sovereignty on the north, Holyrood might have been in ruins a good many centuries earlier. I am not going to shock my Highland friends by saying it was a good thing for the country that Donald, with the remnant of his plaids and claymores, had to retreat to the misty straths and islands of the west. The coalition of Celt and Teuton has taken place in an unostentatious way, to the advantage of both races: Macfadyen does not now, as in the days of Dunbar, bide "far norrart in a neuk;" he has come to the Lowlands long ago, and rarely goes North, except on holiday. And the language, which to the finical ears of James Fourth's poet-laureate, seemed too terrible even for the devil to tolerate, has come south, too, and has a chair all to itself in the University of Edinburgh.Time, saysSophocles,is a god who performs difficult things with ease.

Mention of Harlaw suggests a comic tale told to the credit of the Provost of Inverness. That gentleman, on being threatened with a predatory visit from Donald in 1400, took the remarkable plan of sending an ample supply of Inverness whisky into the Celtic camp. The men of Lewis and Skye tackled the liquid bounty with great glee, and soon were in a state of maudlin intoxication. The wily Provost meanwhile collected a force and attacked Donald's men, who (as they magnified the attacking host todouble its real numbers) were easily scared and routed. At Harlaw, eleven years later, the Provost of Aberdeen, evidently a man who lacked the resource of the chief magistrate of Inverness, was killed, and 500 men with him.

The predatory habits of the Highlanders gave great trouble to the Aberdeenshire farmersfor fully three hundred years after Harlaw. In 1689 a dozen wild Lochaber men came right down into the heart of Aberdeenshire and lifted six score of black cattle. The fate of the marauders is thus described by the author ofJohnny Gibb:—

"They were pursued by a body of nearly 50 horsemen, well mounted and armed, and each carrying bags of meal and other provisions, both for their own support, and to offer in ransom for the cattle, if peaceful negotiations could be carried through. On through the hills, over marshes, rocks, and heather, the spiritedhorsemen followed, under their leader; and guided by a herd-boy whom they encountered, they traced the robbers by Loch Ericht side into the heart of their own country. At nightfall, they came upon them at Dalunchart, encamped and busily engaged roasting a portion of the flesh of one of the cattle they had stolen. They offered, after some parley, to give each of the freebooters a bag of meal and a pair of shoes in ransom for the cattle. The Highlanders treated such an offer for cattle driven so far and with so much trouble with contempt; the herd was gathered in, and the fight began in deep earnest, the result being that the Lochaber men were all shot down, killed or wounded, except three, who escaped unhurt to tell the tale; and the cattle were, of course, recovered."

Perhaps the least attractive of the Scotch counties, in respect of scenery, is Caithness. The North-going train enters it a little after Helmsdale, and from thence to Thurso the journey is of a most dreary and depressing character. He who wishes to see the romantic part of the county should quit the train at Helmsdale, and go right to John o' Groats by the shore road: thereafter he should proceed along the line of the Pentland Firth to the dainty town of Thurso and to the village of Reay, the citadel of the Mackays. The district round Reay is a delightful one, and has great historical interest.

Some good examples of the power assumed of old by the country ministers are furnished by a perusal of thelife of an eighteenth century minister, the Rev. Alexander Pope, who was stationed for many years in Reay. He was a huge giant of a man, and invariably carried about with him a nail-studded cudgel that was a terror to sinners. A lout of a fellow in his parish refused to come to church and get rebuked for an infringement of the usual commandment. Mr. Pope sent three elders with ropes to pinion the adulterer, hale him to church, and fasten him to a conspicuous pew right under the pulpit. The minister cannonaded the culprit to his heart's content, beginning thus: "Shame, shame, son of a beggar, where art thou now?"

Another parishioner who neglected family worship on the ground that he could not make up a prayer, was severely taken to task by Mr. Pope, who gave the man a year within which to manufacture one. At the end of the twelvemonth, Mr. Pope called and requested to hear the prayer. The man glibly rattled off a long succession of phrases that did not please the minister at all. "That won't do," he said, "you must prepare over again." "And is all my long labour to go for nothing," said the man, "all my year's toil? No, no: rather than lose my labour, I'llbreak the prayer up and make two graces of it." For the rest of his life, as the story runs, he did actually employ the two parts of his mutilated prayer as Grace before and Grace after meat respectively. Could there be a finer example of natural thrift in the spiritual world?

An Inverness journalist, Mr. Carruthers, wrote a life of the great poet, Alexander Pope, in which occurs the following curious note respecting the minister of Reay,just mentioned: "The northern Alexander Pope entertained a profound admiration for his illustrious namesake of England; and it is a curious and well-ascertained fact that the simple enthusiastic clergyman, in the summer of 1732, rode on his pony all the way from Caithness to Twickenham, in order to pay the poet a visit. The latter felt his dignity a little touched by the want of the necessary pomp and circumstance with which the minister presumed to approach his domicile; but after the ice of ceremony had in some degree been broken, and their intellects had come in contact, the poet became interested, and a friendly feeling was established between them. Several interviews took place, and the poet presented his good friend and namesake, the minister of Reay, with a copy of the subscription edition of the 'Odyssey' in five volumes quarto."

A grandson of the Reay minister, a Mr. James Campbell of Edinburgh, gave a description to Mr. Carruthers of a snuff-box which the poet had presented to the Rev. Mr. Pope. A series of letters to theNorthern Ensign, in April, 1883, brought out the information that a Wick gentleman, Mr. Duncan, had in his possession two volumes of de Vertot'sHistory of the Roman Republic, bearing an inscription to the effect that they had been presented by the poet of Twickenham to his northern namesake.

It has been suggested that the poet and the minister were distant blood-relations. Mr. Campbell, alluded to above, said that "the two Popes claimed kin." In any case, the friendship of the two men, one living onthe shores of the wild Pentland Firth, in sight of the Orkneys, and the other not far "from streaming London's central roar," is pleasant to think of. In 1737, Pope wrote the lines—

"Loud as the wolves on Orca's stormy steepHowl to the roarings of the northern deep,"

adding, in a note, that he refers to "the farthest northern promontory of Scotland, opposite to the Orcades." Perhaps his mind reverted to the burly incumbent of Reay as he penned the note.

The little township of Reay is less famous for the Rev. Mr. Pope's incumbency than for the fact of Rob Donn, the satirical Gaelic bard, being a native of the district. The author of theDunciadis the greatest satirist in British Literature; Rob Donn is supreme among Gaelic bards for the sharpness of his tongue and his clever way of showing up his contemporaries to ridicule. He was in the habit of giving praise to people in order to make his satire more biting. Praise on his tongue was compared to oil on the edge of a razor: the cut was all the deeper. Rob, although a master of language, was unable to read or write, so that though he "lisped in numbers"—he began to compose at the age of three—he could not say, like Pope:

"Why did Iwrite? What sin to me unknownDipt me in ink, my parents' or my own?"

Blackie speaks thus of him: "Rob Donn, according to all accounts, though outwardly of such fair respectability that he attained an honour, unknown to Robert Burns, of acting as an elder of the kirk, was not always so chaste in his words as he might seem to be in his deeds; he took his plash as a poet, and not always in the clearest waters; besides, he had a terrible lash at his command, which he could wield with an effect at times that paid little respect to the bounds set in such matters by Christian charity, or even by social politeness. The consequence has been that much of the wit and humour of his pieces, however telling for its immediate purpose, has lost half of its interest by the disappearance of the persons to whom it referred. These personal allusions also import an additional difficulty into the language which he uses, and cause his productions, however belauded, to be less known amongst Highlanders generally than those of Duncan Ban and Dugald Buchanan. Severe moralists also very properly object to the undue license and occasional coarseness of his verses."[33]

Before concluding the present chapter, I should like to refer briefly to a valuable and amusing book (brought under my notice in Shetland) that furnishes details of the life of Mr. Mill, minister of Dunrossness from 1742 till 1805. Mr. Mill's special talent was his unrivalled power of exorcism: he was a strenuous foe to the devil in every shape and form, and his life was one long battle with the Prince of Darkness. The latter was constantly bringing into play all manner of gins, traps, and wiles to confound the uncompromising clergyman; but, on a calm review of the evidence, one cannot but admit that the devil was far inferior in intelligence to his opponent.

On one occasion, Satan had the effrontery to come into Dunrossness Church and take his seat at the Communion Table. Mr. Mill at once recognised his life-long adversary, and began to speak in all the deep languages, and, last of all, in Gaelic, and that beat him altogether. Satan went off like a flock of "doos" over the heads of the people, many of whom swooned. "As a permanent reminder of the hostility cherished against him by the Arch-Enemy, it was said that Mr. Mill always had the wind in his face. One day he came up to officiate at Sandwick, in the teeth, as usual, of a pretty stiff breeze. An ordinary person would naturally have expected the wind to be on his back on the return journey. But during the service the wind veered round. Mr. Mill's only comment, as he started for home, was, 'It's all he can do.' In one respect, Mr. Mill benefited by the penalty of always having the wind in his face,for on his very numerous sea-journeys he could always secure a favourable breezeby sitting with his back to the head of the boat."

The following additional tale from Mr. Mill's biography only brings into more striking relief the resource of the minister in all emergencies. "One day a very respectable gentleman entered the house of a tailor in Channerwick, and ordered a suit of clothes to be made out of cloth which he brought with him. The tailor's delight at having such a fine gentleman for a customer was, however, turned into perplexity and fear as he opened up the cloth and found that the colour kept constantly changing. He at once sent for the minister and laid the matter before him. He was advised to spread a sheet on the floor and cut the cloth upon it, so that none of the clippings should be scattered about the room, and the minister said that he would be present to meet the stranger when the latter called to get the clothes. The day came, and when the stranger entered the house, Mr. Mill stepped forward to meet him. A terrible controversy ensued, and the respectable-looking gentleman was swept out of the house in a cloud of blue, sulphurous flame. It is not recorded if he took the new suit with him. A clue to his identification was furnished by his accidentally striking his foot against the door-step as he departed. The result of the collision was that a mark as of a cloven hoof was imprinted on the stone."

I.Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station.II.Defoe, the Father of Journalism.III.A Village Toper.IV.A Reverend Hellenist.V.Antigone.VI.Shadows of the Manse.VII."My Heart's in the Highlands."VIII.Saddell, Kintyre.IX.Springtime in Perthshire.X.Dr. George Macdonald's Creed.XI.Abbotsford.XII.Carlyle.XIII.Shelley.XIV.Picture in an Inn.XV.Rain-storm at Loch Awe.XVI.Kinlochewe.XVII.General Wade.XVIII.Sound of Raasay in December.XIX.Les Neiges d' Antan.XX.The Islands of the Ness.XXI.American Tourist Loquitur.XXII.The Miners.XXIII.In a Country Graveyard.XXIV.No Place like Home.

"Hark! 'tis the twanging horn." So Cowper sangOf the slow post-boy by the flooded Ouse;In different fashion now the great world's newsGoes to each nook of Britain. The harangueOf politician; great events that hangIn Fortune's hand, with magic speed diffuseFrom London's centre to the furthest Lews,Their tingling rumour and resounding clang.Daily along yon track of curving steelsComes to this Highland clachan, Watt's machine,Rolling in triumph on its iron wheels,And bringing letter, journal, magazine,To kilted Celts with collies at their heelsAnd frivolous tourists from the putting-green.

Father of journalists! illustrious liar!Untiring wielder of the nimblest quillThat ever shed the stanchless inky rillUpon the virgin whiteness of the quire.What full and varied stores of gold and mire,Magnificence and squalor, good and ill,Prayers, curses, loyalty and treason fillThy books! But that which children most admireOf all thy hundred volumes, is the oneFated for ever more to charm mankindFrom the far Orient to the Setting Sun.Prompt-witted Daniel! thou has left behindUpon the Sands of Time, distinctly traced,One footmark that can never be effaced.

John loved strong waters and ne'er stirred his feetAbroad in leafy spring or summer's heat,Autumnal breeze or winter's rimy chill,Unsolaced by the nectar of the still.Spirits came always kindly to his lips,And time he measured not by hours but "nips."Teetotalers to him were curse and gall,Grim Banquos at the world's wide festival,Men, whom a weird and fate-ordainéd bale,Had smitten with the hate of cakes and ale,A soda-water, syphon-squirting crew,Guilty of treason to the revenue:Their lurid language and their unctuous warnings,Their moral-pointings and their tale-adornings,And, worst of all, their shamefulwaste of inkIn signing pledges to abstain from drink,Proved them a witless and a churlish band,Unfit to dwell in any Christian land.

In that old ivied manse existsA scholar, wrinkled, bent, and gray,His student lamp gleams through the mistsAnd twinkles on till break of day.This sage is wedded to his books,And Sultan-like his harem's full,He dotes upon them in their nooksWith love and joy that never cool.No wonder that his back is bent,Or that his eye has mystic glows,He pores on pages redolentOf love and love's undying rose.No earthly maiden, fresh and sweet,Could please his fancy half so wellAs a Greek nymph with twinkling feetSkipping in some Arcadian dell.

In that old ivied manse existsA scholar, wrinkled, bent, and gray,His student lamp gleams through the mistsAnd twinkles on till break of day.

This sage is wedded to his books,And Sultan-like his harem's full,He dotes upon them in their nooksWith love and joy that never cool.

No wonder that his back is bent,Or that his eye has mystic glows,He pores on pages redolentOf love and love's undying rose.

No earthly maiden, fresh and sweet,Could please his fancy half so wellAs a Greek nymph with twinkling feetSkipping in some Arcadian dell.

A form of beauty blent with hardihood,Majestic as Olympus wreathed in snows,What modern pages of romance discloseA radiant maiden of such dauntless mood!Yet, when the tyrant strives with outrage rudeThe unyielding maid in darkness to enclose,Then, only then, her burning heart outflowsIn anguished cries of love, but unsubduedBy baser throbbings. Ah! that nuptial hymnUnsung! that bond in death! All men agreeTo crown thee in that chamber dark and dimWith love's immortal wreath, Antigoné.Since love and duty in thy death combine,An immortality of praise is thine.

Lo! we have him of shaven faceAnd curls of long and lustrous hair,Who breathes an atmosphere of graceAnd has a wondrous gift in prayer.You'd ne'er suspect to see him there,Shaking his head in solemn guise,The college life of deil-may-careDiversion that behind him lies.II.And then the little starveling popeWho strives to make his sermons newBy stringing florid scraps of hopeAnd faith and love to dazzle you:From Stopford Brooke a phrase or two,A gleaming line from Arnold's page,Whole screeds of Browning and a fewStolen thunders from the Chelsea sage.III.Perhaps the most diverting wightIs he who sees in Holy WritOld Jewish fables gross and triteTo semblance of a system knit—Fables for modern taste unfit,Untilhecleans the dross awayAnd shows the tiny little bitOf gold that gleams amid the clay.IV.But worst of all is he who jests,Or tries to jest, in pulpit gown,Lord, save us from such holy pestsWho so unseemly act the clownAnd pull the tabernacle downTo something worse than pantomime:On all such zanies let us frownAnd scourge them both in prose and rhyme.

And then the little starveling popeWho strives to make his sermons newBy stringing florid scraps of hopeAnd faith and love to dazzle you:From Stopford Brooke a phrase or two,A gleaming line from Arnold's page,Whole screeds of Browning and a fewStolen thunders from the Chelsea sage.

Perhaps the most diverting wightIs he who sees in Holy WritOld Jewish fables gross and triteTo semblance of a system knit—Fables for modern taste unfit,Untilhecleans the dross awayAnd shows the tiny little bitOf gold that gleams amid the clay.

But worst of all is he who jests,Or tries to jest, in pulpit gown,Lord, save us from such holy pestsWho so unseemly act the clownAnd pull the tabernacle downTo something worse than pantomime:On all such zanies let us frownAnd scourge them both in prose and rhyme.

Puzzling over musty tomes,What a life to lead,While each gay companion roamsWhere his fancies lead!One beside a shady poolSweeps the wave for hours,Comes home with his basket full,When the evening lowers.Some more energetic wightsLeave the level land,Mountaineer on dizzy heights,Alpenstock in hand.Others boat in sunny baysWhere bright sands are seenGlimmering amid a mazeOf tangled flowers marine.Luck to all is what I wishWith a meed of fun,I'll row, mountaineer, and fish,Whenyoursports are done.

Puzzling over musty tomes,What a life to lead,While each gay companion roamsWhere his fancies lead!

One beside a shady poolSweeps the wave for hours,Comes home with his basket full,When the evening lowers.

Some more energetic wightsLeave the level land,Mountaineer on dizzy heights,Alpenstock in hand.

Others boat in sunny baysWhere bright sands are seenGlimmering amid a mazeOf tangled flowers marine.

Luck to all is what I wishWith a meed of fun,I'll row, mountaineer, and fish,Whenyoursports are done.

Fresh gusts of wind ripple the ocean's face,And the green slopes, after the night's soft rain,Glitter beneath the blue.Most glorious are the sea-descending glens,Vivid with countless ferns, and with the blazeOf sun-enamoured broom.The dark, tip-tilted rocks of cruel mood,Show a stern beauty through the creamy foamThat flecks their rugged flanks.See, from this hill-top, how the blazing SoundIs marked by moving shadows of the cloudsThat skim aloft in air.Through the clear radiance of the freshened morn,The eye can see the far farm-windows gleamUp on the Arran hills.

Fresh gusts of wind ripple the ocean's face,And the green slopes, after the night's soft rain,Glitter beneath the blue.

Most glorious are the sea-descending glens,Vivid with countless ferns, and with the blazeOf sun-enamoured broom.

The dark, tip-tilted rocks of cruel mood,Show a stern beauty through the creamy foamThat flecks their rugged flanks.

See, from this hill-top, how the blazing SoundIs marked by moving shadows of the cloudsThat skim aloft in air.

Through the clear radiance of the freshened morn,The eye can see the far farm-windows gleamUp on the Arran hills.

Returning Springtime fills the woods with song—The ring-dove, sick for love, is cooing sweet;The lark, scorning the daisies, soars to greetThe sun, while the brown swarms of bees amongThe flowery meadows skim in haste along.Once more the young year glories in the featOf driving winter off with vernal heatAnd tepid sap luxuriantly strong.Winter has drawn aloof his snowy powersTo the high peaks that domineer the plain,And, like a vanquished leader, grimly lowers,From a safe distance, on the victor's reign.E'er many months have passed, his arrowy showersAnd gusty cohorts will descend again.

God will not suffer that a single oneOf His own creatures, in His image made,Should die, and in irrevocable shadeLie evermore—neglected and undone.It is not thus a father treats his son,And those whose folly credits it, degradeGod's love and fatherhood, that never fade,By lies as base as devils ever spun.Man's love is but a pale reflex of God's,And Godislove, and never will condemnBeyond remission—though He school with rods—His children, but will one day comfort them.Dives will have his drink at last, and standAmong the faithful ones at God's right hand.

"Dryden and Scott, men of a giant seed!"So said I to myself, gazing uponThe pictured countenance of Glorious John,In Abbotsford, hard by the storied Tweed.These twain were brothers, kin in mind and deed:Old England never had a brawnier sonThan Dryden; and in fervid Scotland noneBetter than Scott exemplified the breed.After five centuries of blood and hate,Britain is one leal land from north to south,From gusty Thurso to St. Michael's Mount,I therefore, Scot and Briton, am elateTo think that from Sir Walter's golden mouthDryden's career received the fit account.

The ploughman in the loamy furrow sings,The sailor whistles as he reefs the sail,Blithe is the smith as the blows fall like hailFrom his huge hammer, and the stithy rings.Work is the sole and sovereign balm that bringsPeace to the torpid soul when doubts assail,And sickening pleasures are of no availTo lull the torture of affliction's stings.Give me the work I love, the work I feelGod in His Heaven has willed that I should do,And you may offer the whole commonweal,Lands, mansions, jewels, gold, and temples too,Vainly to me. By strenuous work aloneMan mounts on Jacob's ladder to God's throne.

'Twas but a passing visit that he paidTo the gross air of earth, this mystic seer,The tyrannies of sense were too severeFor one of clay more fine than Adam's made.The inhumanity of man, the tradeOf coining gold from the serf's groan and tear,The galling fetters of religious fear,And vain ecclesiastic masqueradeTortured his gentle soul, and made his lifeOne bitter struggle with the powers that be:Yet not in vain he lived; his manful strifeWith all the deadening despotisms we seeWill ring along the centuries, untilGood has her final triumph over ill.

A wood of pines through which the setting sunPours from the western sky a parting flame,Beside the shore, a church called by the nameOf some old saint whose pious race was runLong ere schismatic Luther had begunTo work the Pope and his disciples shame.In earnest-seeming talk, a knight and dameSit in a painted galley, rowed by oneWhose back is to the setting orb of day.The soldier and his mate, their faces litWith all love's animation and the rayOf the down-lapsing globe of crimson, sitTogether in the gilded vessel's prow,And there will sit for evermore, as now.

The topmost mountain-snows are melting fast,See, how the swollen waters hurry downIn perpendicular runnels from the crownOf every wreathéd hill. The train has pastBeside a dark stream into which are castA hundred huddling rills whose foam is brownWith pilfered soil. No dweller in a townEver beheld such manifold and vastTorrents of roaring water. Each small isleSpaced on the loch, glooms through the hanging hazeLike a dream-picture, and for many a mileBeneath those clouds that lean upon the braesEncompassing Loch Awe, the watery plainIs pricked with million lances of the rain.

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