Chronicles of Strathearn

by Unknown

A shady knoll o'erlooks a dale
Where Earn meanders down the vale;
A knoll enwreathed in oak and fern,
The sweetest nook in all Strathearn.
The morn there breaks with earliest ray,
Here latest shines the lingering day,
There summer reigns supremely fair,
And winter ev'n is lovely there.
Its eastern prospect looks entire
Along the glades of Ochtertyre;
Its south, a mountain forest shade
By dark blue pine and larches made;
While lone Glenartney in the west
Lies cradled like a turtle's nest,
And huge Benvoirlich crown'd with snow
Defends the smiling glens below.
Dear shady knoll, whose varied view
Enfolds green field and mountain blue,
How oft at morn and eventide
I've strolled around thy stony side
And listened to the artless song
That swell'd the glorious vale along!
Mark'd where the sunbeams kindliest fell
On rocky ridge and heathery dell,
And yielded all my soul to share
The teachings of a scene so fair!
In storm or calm, thy grateful shade
My fond retreat was ever made.
There have I marked the thunder cloud
Invest all heaven with sable shroud;
There heard the peal arouse again
The echoes of the Turret glen,
While Auchingarroch from afar
Rolled back the elemental war;
There have I watched wing'd lightning play
Adown Glenartney's rugged way,
Or gild each flinty summit hoar
From Callander to far Ken More;
There seen the Ruchill deluge foam,
And o'er the strath in eddies roam,
Sweeping beyond the power to save
A golden harvest on its wave.

*****

High on my left, unstained by storm,
An obelisk uprears its form;
Commemorates in fitting style
Heroic deeds upon the Nile,
When he who conquered in Mysore
To Afric's sands his legions bore,
And showed the trembling prince and slave
The gentleness of one that's brave.
Yet on that monumental stone
More feats of high renown are shown,
Where he a prisoner and enchained,
At last his noblest laurels gained:
Lived to avenge each treacherous wrong,
And triumph when he suffered long.
There, too, his brilliant tasks to cope,
'Tis told he seized the Cape of Hope;
And sad Corunna's bloody shore
But added to his fame the more.
A widow's love the warrior praised,
A widow's love the column raised;
And yet that column tall and bold,
Traced in the lines of Egypt old,
Arises as a new cut stone
Amid the dust of ages gone;
For while it tells of yesterday,
It stands upon the summit grey
Where stately tower and donjon stern
Were keep and tomb of fair Strathearn;
Where Wallace oft his prowess tried,
And royal Bruce in valour vied.
Talk we of Bruce? By yon dark wood
The Comyn's ancient fortress stood—
That traitor whose unhappy fate
Still on the monarch's conscience sate,
And urged him in a zeal divine
To send his heart to Palestine.

See where the waters dash aside,
And swiftly round the thicket glide,
Where mossy crag and fan-like bough
Inshade the torrent far below.
Within a towery wilderness
Of nature's wildest gorgeousness,
There rose in architecture quaint
The cell of Strowan's valiant saint—
A soldier-priest whose claymore long
Was more persuasive than his tongue;
Here stands his cross, there flows his well,
Here still is seen his holy hell;
Here, ivy-mantled, still remain
The ruins of the ancient fane,
Where once to heaven the anthem rose,
And silent now the loved repose.

On every side each scene has store
Of song and legendary lore;
Each stream has still its story true,
Each height some bloody conflict knew;
Each crag must give its meed to fame,
And consecrate a hero's name.
High o'er the rest, all bleak and dern,
Moulders the royal Kenneth's cairn,
Who for his crown his good sword bared,
And fell in fight at Monzievaird.
Even in their church, the doom of fire
Consumed the clan of Ochtertyre;
And in his home across the plain,
Old Drummond-Ernoch was slain;
Sons of the mist avenged their dead,
And bore away his grisly head.

Old tales like these, old legends true,
Spring up where'er I turn my view—
From Turret's glen and brawling wave,
From Tosach's keep and fairy grave,
From Ochtertyre's unfading bower,
From Comyn's lone and moated tower,
From where our chief with skilful eye
Watched wonders in the midnight sky,
From Tomachastel's haunted brow,
From cell for Ronan's prayer and vow,
From lordly Drummond's forest wall,
From Lochlane's grim empannelled hall,
From stately Turleum clothed in pine,
And every height surrounding mine.
'Twere idle then each tale to tell,
Of ancient feat by stream or dell,
From Benychonzie's snow-clad breast
To green Glenartney in the west,
Or round by sweet Dunira's den,
Where "bonnie Kilmanie gaed up the glen."
No need I ween of distant view
My sauntering footsteps hence to woo;
No need of song or knightly feat
To add new charm to my retreat.
Its own associations claim
Far better meed than modern fame,
With books and scenes and neighbours sage,
I commune with a former age.

BETWEEN STRATHALLAN AND STRATHEARN

By Rev. JAMES MACGIBBON, B.D., Blackford.

The name Blackford was given, according to tradition, by an ancient king of Caledonia, whose experience in passing the River Allan at this point was of the saddest. The stream spread itself out in those days, says the story, so as to be more lake than stream. When the king came to it with his queen and suite the waters were deep and the current strong. It must have been at night surely, if we are to have any faith in the tale, for the poor queen was carried away beyond help and hope. They drained the strath dry to recover the body; and a solitary knoll on the Allan's bank some way below the present village marks the place where they found and buried the remains of fair Queen Helen. Hence the name Blackford. In the days of the Roman occupation the legionaries frequented this upper part of Strathallan, and have left traces of their presence. Many of them, indeed, must have quartered near; for at the Loaninghead, about two miles east of the village, there is an undeniable Roman camp, an outpost of the great camp at Ardoch.