Thomson told the world how in his youth,
'Nursed by careless solitude he lived
And sang of nature with unceasing joy,'[28]
and how, with 'nature's volume broad displayed,' it was his sole delight to read therein, happy if it might be his good fortune,
'Catching inspiration thence
Some easy passage, raptured, to translate.'[29]
He had been used in his early years to muse
'On rocks and hills and towers and wandering streams,'[30]
and these now became the subjects of his song. Thomson, like his greater successor Burns, had from earliest boyhood been familiar with the burns and waters of his northern home. When he came to England he found but little entertainment in the landscapes around London, and longed for 'the living stream, the airy mountain, and the hanging rock.' He portrays with evident delight the changeful aspect of his native watercourses in the various seasons of the year. He knew well the 'deep morass' and 'shaking wilderness,' where many of them 'rise high among the hills,' and whence they assumed their 'mossy-tinctured' hue. He traces them as they 'roll o'er their rocky channel' until they at last lose themselves in 'the ample river' Tweed.[31] He describes them as they appear at sheep-washing time, and dwells on their delights for boys as bathing-places. But it is their wilder moods that live most vividly in his memory, when
'From the hills