Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/233
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BEN NEVIS.
215
I will not go; I wont be sold;
I scorn his pleasures and array;
I'll rather bear the country's cold,
Than from its freedom walk away.
I scorn his pleasures and array;
I'll rather bear the country's cold,
Than from its freedom walk away.
What is to me the city's pride?
The haunt of luxury and pleasure;
Those fields and hills, this wild brookside,
To me are better beyond measure.
'Mid country scenes I'll still abide;
With country life and country leisure;
Content, whatever may betide,
With common good instead of treasure.
The haunt of luxury and pleasure;
Those fields and hills, this wild brookside,
To me are better beyond measure.
'Mid country scenes I'll still abide;
With country life and country leisure;
Content, whatever may betide,
With common good instead of treasure.
Glencoe.
Keep silence, lest the rocks in thunder fall;
Keep silence, lest ye wake the hapless dead,
Whose blood is crying from the ground to call
The doom of justice on the murderer's head!
Dark and more dark, ye shades of evening lower;
Wide, and more wide, ye gathering tempests, spread,
Thick clouds and waters round the Avenging Power
Whose malison is here! The river moans;
The wind, with deepening sigh from hour to hour,
Saddens the gloom, a curse is on the land;
From every caverned cliff sepulchral groans
Appal the desolation; and around,
The melancholy mountains loathe the sun,
And shall, till the career of Time be done.
Keep silence, lest ye wake the hapless dead,
Whose blood is crying from the ground to call
The doom of justice on the murderer's head!
Dark and more dark, ye shades of evening lower;
Wide, and more wide, ye gathering tempests, spread,
Thick clouds and waters round the Avenging Power
Whose malison is here! The river moans;
The wind, with deepening sigh from hour to hour,
Saddens the gloom, a curse is on the land;
From every caverned cliff sepulchral groans
Appal the desolation; and around,
The melancholy mountains loathe the sun,
And shall, till the career of Time be done.
Ben Nevis.
We climb, we pant, we pause; again we climb;
Frown not, stern mountain, nor around thee throw
Thy mist and storm, but look with cloudless brow
O'er all thy giant progeny sublime;
While toiling up the immeasurable height
We climb, we pant, we pause; the thickening gloom
Hath palled us in the darkness of the tomb:
And on the hard-won summit sound nor sight
Frown not, stern mountain, nor around thee throw
Thy mist and storm, but look with cloudless brow
O'er all thy giant progeny sublime;
While toiling up the immeasurable height
We climb, we pant, we pause; the thickening gloom
Hath palled us in the darkness of the tomb:
And on the hard-won summit sound nor sight