earth as with a garment to enfold,
And from his piercing eye the loose mists flew,
And heaven with arch of deep autumnal blue
Glow'd overhead; while ocean, like a lake,
Seeming delight to take
In its own halcyon-calm, resplendent lay,
From Western Kames to far Kilchattan bay.
Old Largs look'd out amid the orient light,
With its grey dwellings, and, in greenery bright,
Lay Coila's classic shores reveal'd to sight;
And like a Vallombrosa, veil'd in blue,
Arose Mount Stuart's woodlands on the view;
Kerry and Cowall their bold hill-tops show'd,
And Arran, and Kintire; like rubies glow'd
The jagged clefts of Goatfell; and below,
As on a chart, delightful Rothesay lay,
Whence sprang of human life the awakening sound,
With all its happy dwellings, stretching round
The semicircle of its sunbright bay.

III.

Byrone, a type of peace thou seemest now,
Yielding thy ridges to the rustic plough,
With corn-fields at thy feet, and many a grove
Whose songs are but of love;
But different was the aspect of that hour,
Which brought, of eld, the Norsemen o'er the deep,
To wrest yon castle's walls from Scotland's power,
And leave her brave to bleed, her fair to weep;
When Husbac fierce, and Olave, Mona's king,[5]
Confederate chiefs, with shout and triumphing,
Bade o'er its towers the Scaldic raven fly,
And mock each storm-tost sea-king toiling by!--
Far different were the days,
When flew the fiery cross, with summoning blaze,
O'er Blane's hill, and o'er Catan, and o'er Kames,
And round thy peak the phalanx'd Butesmen stood,[6]
As Bruce's followers shed the Baliol's blood,
Yea! gave each Saxon homestead to the flames!

IV.

Proud palace-home of kings! what art thou now?
Worn are the traceries of thy lofty brow!
Yet once in beauteous strength like thee were none,
When Rothesay's Duke was heir to Scotland's throne;[7]
Ere Falkland rose, or Holyrood, in thee
The barons to their sovereign bow'd the knee:
Now, as to mock thy pride
The very waters of thy moat are dried;
Through fractured arch and doorway freely pass
The sunbeams, into halls o'ergrown with grass;
Thy floors, unroof'd, are open to the sky,
And the snows lodge there when the storm sweeps by;
O'er thy grim battlements, where bent the bow
Thine archers keen, now hops the chattering crow;
And where the beauteous and the brave were guests,
Now breed the bats--the swallows build their nests!
Lost even the leg