CORA LINN, OR THE FALLS OF THE CLYDE.
WRITTEN ON REVISITING IT IN 1837.
HE time I saw thee, Cora, last,
Twas with congenial friends;
And calmer hours of pleasure past
My memory seldom sends.
It was as sweet an autumn day
As ever shone on Clyde,
And Lanark's orchards all the way
Put forth their golden pride;
Even hedges, busked in bravery,
Looked rich that sunny morn;
The scarlet hip and blackberry
So pranked September's thorn.
In Cora's glen the calm how deep!
That trees on loftiest hill
Like statues stood, or things asleep,
All motionless and still.
The torrent spoke, as if his noise
Bade earth be quiet round,
And give his loud and lonely voice
A more commanding sound.
His foam, beneath the yellow light
Of noon, came down like one
Continuous sheet of jaspers bright,
Broad rolling by the sun.
Dear Linn! let loftier falling floods
Have prouder names than thine;
And king of all, enthroned in woods,
Let Niagara shine.
Barbarian, let him shake his coasts
With reeking thunders far,
Extended like the array of hosts
In broad, embattled war!
His voice appalls the wilderness:
Approaching thine, we feel
A solemn, deep melodiousness,
That needs no louder peal.
More fury would but disenchant
Thy dream-inspiring din;
Be thou the Scottish Muse's haunt,
Romantic Cora Linn.
OR, THE GLEN OF THE MIST.
beauteous corri! where cattle wander,
My misty corri! my darling dell! Mighty, verdant, and covered over
With wild-flowers tender of sweetest smell; Dark is the green of thy grassy clothing,
Soft swell thy hillocks most green and deep,
The cannach blowing, the darnel growing,
While the deer troop passed to the misty steep.
Fine for wear is thy beauteous mantle,
Strongly woven and ever new,
With rough grass o'er it, and, brightly gleaming,
The grass all spangled with diamond dew;
It's round my corri, my lovely corri,
Where rushes thicken and long reeds blow;
Fine were the harvest to any reaper
Who through the marsh and the bog could go.
Ah, that's fine clothing! a great robe stretching,
A grassy carpet most smooth and green,
Painted and fed by the rain from heaven
In hues the bravest that man has seen,
"Twixt here and Paris I do not fancy
A finer raiment can ever be,
May it grow forever! and, late and early,
May I be here on the knolls to see!
Around Ruadh-Arisidh what ringlets cluster!
Fair, long, and crested, and closely twined,
This way and that they are lightly waving
At every breath of the mountain wind.
The twisted hemlock, the slanted rye-grass,
The juicy moor-grass, can all be found;
And the close-set groundsel is greenly growing
By the wood where heroes are sleeping sound.
In yonder ruin once dwelt MacBhaidi,
"T is now a desert where winds are shrill;
Yet the well-shaped brown ox is feeding by it,
Among the stones that bestrew the hill.
How fine to see, both in light and gloaming,
The smooth Clach-Fionn, so still and deep,
And the houseless cattle and calves most peaceful,
Grouped on the brow of the lonely steep.
In every nook of the mountain pathway
The garlic-flower may be thickly found;
And out on the sunny slopes around it
Hang berries juicy, and red, and round;
The pennyroyal and dandelion,
The downy cannach, together lie,-
Thickly they grow from the base of the mountain
To the topmost crag of his crest so high.
And not a crag but is clad most richly,
For rich and silvern the soft moss clings;
Fine is the moss, most clean and stainless,
Hiding the look of unlovely things;
Down in the hollows beneath the summit,
Where the verdure is growing most rich and deep, The little daisies are looking upward,
And the yellow primroses often peep.
And sweet it was, when the white sun glimmered,
Listening under the crag to stand,
And hear the moor-hen so hoarsely croaking,
And the red-cock murmuring close at hand;
While the little wren blew his tiny trumpet,
And threw his steam off blithe and strong,
While the speckled thrush and the redbreast gayly
Lilted together a pleasant song!
Not a singer but joined the chorus,
Not a bird in the leaves was still.
First the laverock, that famous singer,
Led the music with throat so shrill;
From tall tree branches the blackbird whistled,
And the gray-bird joined with his sweet "coo-coo"
";
Everywhere was the blithesome chorus,
Till the glen was murmuring through and through.
Then out of the shelter of every corri
Came forth the creature whose home is there:
First, proudly stepping, with branching antlers,
The snorting red-deer forsook his lair;
Through the sparkling fern he rushed rejoicing,
Or gently played by his heart's delight;
The hind of the mountain, the sweet brown princess,
So fine, so dainty, so staid, so slight!
Under the light green branches creeping
The brown doe cropt the leaves unseen,
While the proud buck gravely stared around him,
And stamped his feet on his couch of green;
Smooth and speckled, with soft pink nostrils,
With beauteous head, lay the tiny kid;
All apart in the dewy rushes,
Sleeping unseen in its nest, 't was hid.
My beauteous corri! my misty corri!
What light feet trod thee in joy and pride,
|