Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Kenmore

Verses

By Robert Burns (1759–1796)

ADMIRING Nature in her wildest grace,

These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;

O’er many a winding dale and painful steep,

The abodes of covied grouse and timid sheep,

My savage journey, curious, I pursue,

Till famed Breadálbane opens to my view.

The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides;

The woods, wild scattered, clothe their ample sides;

The outstretching lake, imbosomed ’mong the hills,

The eye with wonder and amazement fills;

The Tay, meandering sweet in infant pride;

The palace, rising on its verdant side;

The lawns, wood-fringed in Nature’s native taste;

The hillocks, dropt in Nature’s careless haste;

The arches, striding o’er the new-born stream;

The village, glittering in the noontide beam—

Poetic ardors in my bosom swell,

Lone wandering by the hermit’s mossy cell:

The sweeping theatre of hanging woods;

The incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods—

Here Poesy might wake her Heaven-taught lyre,

And look through nature with creative fire;

Here to the wrongs of Fate half reconciled,

Misfortune’s lightened steps might wander wild;

And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,

Find balm to soothe her bitter, rankling wounds:

Here heart-struck Grief might heavenward stretch her scan,

And injured Worth forget and pardon man.