Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/116

 HAWTHORNDEX. 91

Yet though it plunges strong and bold,

Its murmurs meet the ear, Like fretful childhood s weak complaint,

Half smothered in its fear.

There s plenty, in my own dear land,

Of cave and wild cascade, And all my early years were spent

In such romantic glade ; And I could featly climb the cliff,

Or forest roam and fen ; But I ve been puzzled here among

These rocks of Hawthornden.

Here, too, are labyrinthine paths

To caverns dark and low, Wherein, they say, king Robert Bruce

Found refuge from his foe ; And still amid their relics old

His stalwart sword they keep, Which telleth tales of cloven heads

And gashes, dire and deep :

While, sculptured in the yielding stone

Full many a niche they show, Where erst his library he stored,

(The guide-boy told us so.) Slight need had he of books, I trow,

Mid hordes of savage men, And precious little time to read

At leagured Hawthornden.

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