Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
The Shepherd of Glenshee
By William Thomson (b. 1797)I
I breathe the healthful mountain gale;
Far from the city’s busy throng,
I listen to the warbler’s song;
I guide and tend my fleecy flocks,
Among the muirs, around the rocks;
And wander unconfined and free,
By bank and burn amid Glenshee.
I mark the seasons onward glide;
See winter clothe the hills with snow,
And make the rivers overflow;
Behold the sunshine and the showers
In spring renew the leafless bowers;
And list the hum of busy bee
Among the blossoms in Glenshee.
And fills the bosom with delight;
When bloom adorns the sylvan dell,
And purple heath-flowers deck the fell,—
At gloaming gray, amid the glade,
I wander with my mountain maid;
And there is none like her I see,
The fairest flower in all Glenshee!
In shady dell, the violet blue;
I joy to view the crystal stream
In morning’s cloudless radiance gleam;
But dearer, sweeter, lovelier far
Than opening rose or shining star,
Than all I know, than all I see,
The blossom that adorns Glenshee!