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

Cayla, the River

The River Cayla

By Thomas Pringle (1789–1834)

(From The Autumnal Excursion)

Cayla, or Cayle-Water, is one of the branches of the river Teviot.

CAYLA! like voice of years gone by,

I hear thy mountain melody:

It comes with long-forgotten dreams

Once cherished by thy wizard streams;

And sings of school-boy rambles free,

And heart-felt young hilarity!

I see the mouldering turrets hoar

Dim-gleaming on thy woodland shore,

Where oft, afar from vulgar eye,

I loved at summer tide to lie;

Abandoned to the witching sway

Of some old bard’s heroic lay;

Or poring o’er the immortal story

Of Roman and of Grecian glory.

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But chief, when summer twilight mild

Drew her dim curtain o’er the wild,

I loved beside that ruin gray

To watch the dying gleam of day.

And though, perchance, with secret dread,

I heard the bat flit round my head,

While winds that waved the long lank grass

With sound unearthly seemed to pass,

Yet with a pleasing horror fell

Upon my heart the thrilling spell;

For all that met the eye or ear

Was still so pure and peaceful here,

I deemed no evil might intrude

Within the saintly solitude.

Still vivid memory can recall

The figure of each shattered wall;

The aged trees, all hoar with moss,

Low-bending o’er the circling fosse;

The rushing of the mountain flood;

The cushats cooing in the wood;

The rooks that o’er the turrets sail;

The lonely curlew’s distant wail;

The flocks that high on Hounam rest;

The glories of the glowing west.

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