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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Halcro’s Song

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

Northmaven

Halcro’s Song

By Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

(From The Pirate, chap. xii.)

FAREWELL to Northmaven,

Gray Hillswicke, farewell!

To the calms of thy haven,

The storms on thy fell;

To each breeze that can vary

The mood of thy main,

And to thee, bonny Mary!

We meet not again.

Farewell the wild ferry,

Which Hacon could brave,

When the peaks of the Skerry

Were white in the wave.

There ’s a maid may look over

These wild waves in vain,

For the skiff of her lover,—

He comes not again.

The vows thou hast broke,

On the wild currents fling them;

On the quicksand and rock

Let the mermaiden sing them.

New sweetness they ’ll give her

Bewildering strain;

But there ’s one who will never

Believe them again.

O were there an island,

Though ever so wild,

Where woman could smile, and

No man be beguiled,—

Too tempting a snare

To poor mortals were given,

And the hope would fix there

That should anchor on heaven.