VII.
This, too, a covert shall insure
To shield them from the storm;
And coward maukin sleep secure,
Low in her grassy form:
Here shall the shepherd make his seat,
To weave his crown of flow’rs;
Or find a shelt’ring safe retreat
From prone-descending show’rs.
VIII.
And here, by sweet, endearing stealth,
Shall meet the loving pair,
Despising worlds with all their wealth
As empty idle care.
The flow’rs shall vie in all their charms
The hour of heav’n to grace,
And birks extend their fragrant arms
To screen the dear embrace.
IX.
Here haply too, at vernal dawn,
Some musing bard may stray,
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn,
And misty mountain gray;
Or, by the reaper’s nightly beam,
Mild-chequering thro’ the trees,
Rave to my darkly-dashing stream,
Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.
X.
Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
My lowly banks o’erspread,
And view, deep-bending in the pool,
Their shadows’ wat’ry bed!
Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest
My craggy cliffs adorn;
And, for the little songster’s nest,
The close embow’ring thorn.
XI.
So may old Scotia’s darling hope,
Your little angel band,
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop
Their honour’d native land!
So may thro’ Albion’s farthest ken,
To social-flowing glasses,
The grace be—“Athole’s honest men,
And Athole’s bonnie lasses?”