[DONALD.]
Do you happen to know in Ross-shire
Mount Ben ... but the name scarce matters:
Of the naked fact I am sure enough,
Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.
You may recognise Ben by description;
Behind him—a moor’s immenseness:
Up goes the middle mount of a range,
Fringed with its firs in denseness.
Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind!
For an edge there is, though narrow;
From end to end of the range, a strip
Of path runs straight as an arrow.
And the mountaineer who takes that path
Saves himself miles of journey
He has to plod if he crosses the moor
Through heather, peat, and burnie.
But a mountaineer he needs must be,
For, look you, right in the middle
Projects bluff Ben—with an end in ich—
Why planted there, is a riddle:
Since all Ben’s brothers little and big
Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder,
And only this burliest out must bulge
Till it seems—to the beholder
From down in the gully,—as if Ben’s breast,
To a sudden spike diminished,
Would signify to the boldest foot
“All further passage finished!”