I see before me now a travelling army halting,
Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high,
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily seen,
The numerous camp-fires scattered near and far, some away up on the mountain,
The shadowy...
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Thou tall, majestic monarch of the wood,
That standeth where no wild vines dare to creep,
Men call thee old, and say that thou hast stood
A century upon my rugged steep;
Yet unto me thy life is but a day,
When I recall the things that I have seen,—
The forest monarchs that have passed away
Upon the spot where first I saw thy green;... -
Oh, the fern, the fern, the Irish hill fern,
That girds our blue lakes from Lough Ine to Lough Erne,
That waves on our crags like the plume of a king,
And bends like a nun over clear well and spring.
The fairies’ tall palm-tree, the heath-bird’s fresh nest,
And the couch the red-deer deems the sweetest and best;
With the free winds to fan it, and... -
On Turning One Down with the Plough in April, 1786
WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,
Thou ’s met me in an evil hour,
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonny gem.Alas! it ’s no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee ’... -
The mountain sat upon the plain
In his eternal chair,
His observation omnifold,
His inquest everywhere.
The seasons prayed...The Mountain sat upon the Plain
In his tremendous Chair —
His observation omnifold,
His inquest, everywhere —
The Seasons played around his knees
Like Children round a sire —
Grandfather of the Days is He
Of Dawn, the Ancestor —