Oh, cruel off St. Andrew’s Bay
The winds are wont to blow!
They either rest or gently play,
When there in dreams I go.
And there I wander, young again,
With limbs that do not tire,
Along the coast to Kittock’s Den,
With whinbloom all afire.
I climb the Spindle Rock, and lie
And take my doubtful ease,
Between the ocean and the sky,
Derided by the breeze.
Where coloured mushrooms thickly grow,
Like flowers of brittle stalk,
To haunted Magus Muir I go,
By Lady Catherine’s Walk.
In dreams the year I linger through,
In that familiar town,
Where all the youth I ever knew,
Burned up and flickered down.
There’s not a rock that fronts the sea,
There’s not an inland grove,
But has a tale to tell to me
Of friendship or of love.
And so I keep, and ever shall,
The best place in my heart for Scotland,
Scotland, Scotland,
The best place in my heart for Scotland!
THE HAUNTED CHAMBER
Life is a house where many chambers be,
And all the doors will yield to him who tries,
Save one, whereof men say, behind it lies
The haunting secret. He who keeps the key,
Keeps it securely, smiles perchance to see
The eager hands stretched out to clutch the prize,
Or looks with pity in the yearning eyes,
And is half moved to let the secret free.