YARROW REVISITED, AND OTHER POEMS
COMPOSED (TWO EXCEPTED) DURING A TOUR IN SCOTLAND AND ON THE ENGLISH BORDER, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1831.
X. IN THE SOUND OF MULL
YARROW REVISITED, AND OTHER POEMS
COMPOSED (TWO EXCEPTED) DURING A TOUR IN SCOTLAND AND ON THE ENGLISH BORDER, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1831.
TRADITION, be thou mute! Oblivion, throw Thy veil in mercy o’er the records, hung Round strath and mountain, stamped by the ancient tongue On rock and ruin darkening as we go,– Spots where a word, ghostlike, survives to show What crimes from hate, or desperate love, have sprung; From honour misconceived, or fancied wrong, What feuds, not quenched but fed by mutual woe. Yet, though a wild vindictive Race, untamed By civil arts and labours of the pen, 10 Could gentleness be scorned by those fierce Men, Who, to spread wide the reverence they claimed For patriarchal occupations, named Yon towering Peaks, “Shepherds of Etive Glen?”