V. GLEN-ALMAIN, OR THE NARROW GLEN. In this still place, remote from men, sang of battles, and the breath Of stormy war, and violent death; And should, methinks, when all was past, Have rightfully been laid at last Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent As by a spirit turbulent; Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild, And every thing unreconciled; In some complaining, dim retreat, A more entire tranquillity. Does then the Bard sleep here indeed? Or is it but a groundless creed? What matters it? I blame them not Was moved; and in such way expressed A Convent, even a hermit's Cell Would break the silence of this Dell: But something deeper far than these: VI. STEPPING WESTWARD. While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sunset, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What, you are stepping westward ?" "What you are stepping westward ?” -"Twould be a wildish destiny, If we, who thus together roam In a strange Land, and far from home, The dewy ground was dark and cold; I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound The voice was soft, and she who spake The very sound of courtesy: Its power was felt; and while my eye VII. THE SOLITARY REAPER. BEHOLD her, single in the field, Alone she cuts, and binds the grain, No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of Travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian Sands: Such thrilling voice was never heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. |