CHAPTER I.

LEAVING HOME.

I.

Let us sit upon this stone,
With its gray moss overgrown;
And we'll talk about the past,
For I'm left the very last,
Of that simple hardy race,
Who first settled in this place;
At whose stroke the forest fell,
And the sound of Sabbath bell
Startled desolation's brood,
In the trackless solitude.

II.

Half a century has rolled,

With its burdens manifold;

Since I left my home so dear,

And came a young adventurer here ;
Many faces fortune wears,

In the space of fifty years,

Strange mutations, smiles and frowns,
Unexpected ups and downs.

Oh what crowds have crossed the path

To the rendezvous of death,

Men so mighty in their day,

Gone to nothingness away,

What great teachers and their schools,
Prophets time has proven fools.
Transcendental meteors high,

That have faded from the sky;
Tho' the fashion of a day,

Gone like shadows all away.

III.

Fifty years have passed away,

Fifty years this very day,

Since I left at fortune's call,

Friends and fatherland and all;

I was then a happy boy,

Earth a scene of hope and joy;
I have now grown old and gray,
Yet it seems but yesterday;
Every circumstance comes back,
O'er that long and weary track;
Friends the loving and true hearted,
Who have long with death departed;
Crowd around me in the dell,

Where I bade them all farewell.

gowan

IV.

It was a lovely morn in spring,
The lark was high upon the wing,
The bonnie bells in clusters blue,
The wi' its drap o'dew,
The cowslip and the primrose pale,
Were forth in Cartha's lovely vale;
Ah there they were so chaste and meek,
Not silent tho' they did not speak ;
It seemed to me as if they knew,

I came to bid them all adieu;
For we'd been companions dear,
And could not part without a tear,

And Cartha had a mournful voice,

She did not as of old rejoice;

And vale and mountain, flower and tree,
Were looking sadly upon me;

For oh! there is a nameless tie,
A strange mysterious sympathy,
Between us and material things,
Which into close communion brings
Our spirits with the unseen power,
Which looks from every tree and flower.
There was the bonnie bush of broom,
Just opening into golden bloom,
Beneath whose tassels many a day,
I listened to the blackbird's lay;
Yonder the mountains looming through,
Benlomond towering in the blue,
How kingly! tho' his forehead wears,
The furrows of six thousand years.
Oh! how I loved those mountains gray,
Which pass not like man's works away;
But are forever seated there,

Old monarchs on their thrones of air;
And were they not the first to draw
From out my soul the sigh of awe,
Till down the mighty shadows came,