O could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Dunfermline—Ruins of the Abbey—Grave of Robert Bruce—Malcolm Canmore's Palace—William Henryson, the poet—William Dunbar—Stirling Castle—Views from its Summit—City of Stirling—George Buchanan and Dr. Arthur Johnston—Falkirk—Linlithgow—Story of the Capture of Linlithgow Castle—Spirit of War—Arrival in Edinburgh.
Bidding adieu to Lochleven, we journey slowly through a pleasant and highly cultivated region, till we reach the ancient town of Dunfermline, in which some of the old Scottish kings formerly held court, and which is yet adorned with the remains of a magnificent abbey. Robert Bruce was interred here, in complete armor, and much interest was excited, a few years ago, by the discovery of his skeleton. In the vicinity are the ruins of Malcolm Canmore's palace and stronghold, standing on the edge of a deep romantic glen, in which, more than three hundred years ago, the poet Henryson, a schoolmaster in Dunfermline, was wont to wander, singing his beautiful lays, in the quaint and difficult dialect of former times.
"In myddis of June, that jolly sweet sessoun,
Quhen that fair Ph[oe]bus, with his beamis brycht,
Had dryit up the clew fra daill and doun,
And all the land made with his lemys lycht;
In a morning betwene mid-day and nycht,
I raiss and put all sluith and sleep on syde;
Ontill a wod I went allone, but gyd. (glad?)
Sueit was the smell of flowris quhyt and reid,
The noyis of birdis rycht delitious;
The bewis brod blumyt abune my heid;
The grund gowand with grassis gratious
Of all pleasans that place was plenteous,
With sueit odours and birdis armonie;
The mornyng mild my mirth was mair forthy.
Henryson was contemporary with William Dunbar, a poet, says Sir Walter Scott, unrivalled by any that Scotland has ever produced. He flourished at the court of James IV. His poems are of all sorts, allegorical, moral and comic. The following lines on the brevity of human existence are a fair specimen of his style.
This wavering warld's wretchedness,
The failing and fruitless business,
The misspent time, the service vain,
For to consider is ane pain.