IV.
Proud palace-home of kings! what art thou now? Worn are the traceries of thy lofty brow! Yet once in beauteous strength like thee were none, When Rothesay's Duke was heir to Scotland's throne;[7] Ere Falkland rose, or Holyrood, in thee The barons to their sovereign bow'd the knee: Now, as to mock thy pride The very waters of thy moat are dried; Through fractured arch and doorway freely pass The sunbeams, into halls o'ergrown with grass; Thy floors, unroof'd, are open to the sky, And the snows lodge there when the storm sweeps by; O'er thy grim battlements, where bent the bow Thine archers keen, now hops the chattering crow; And where the beauteous and the brave were guests, Now breed the bats—the swallows build their nests! Lost even the legend of the bloody stair, Whose steps wend downward to the house of prayer; Gone is the priest, and they who worshipp'd seem Phantoms to us—a dream within a dream; Earth hath o'ermantled each memorial stone, And from their tombs the very dust is gone; All perish'd, all forgotten, like the ray Which gilt yon orient hill-tops yesterday; All nameless, save mayhap one stalwart knight, Who fell with Græme in Falkirk's bloody fight— Bonkill's stout Stewart,[8] whose heroic tale Oft circles yet the peasant's evening fire, And how he scorn'd to fly, and how he bled— He, whose effigies in St Mary's choir, With planted heel upon the lion's head, Now rests in marble mail. Yet still remains the small dark narrow room, Where the third Robert, yielding to the gloom Of his despair, heart-broken, laid him down, Refusing food, to die; and to the wall Turn'd his determined face, unheeding all, And to his captive boy-prince left his crown. [9] Alas! thy solitary hawthorn-tree, Four-centuried, and o'erthrown, is but of thee A type, majestic ruin: there it lies, And annually puts on its May-flower bloom, To fill thy lonely courts with bland perfume, Yet lifts no more its green head to the skies; [10] The last lone living thing around that knew Thy glory, when the dizziness and din Of thronging life o'erflow'd thy halls within, And o'er thy top St Andrew's banner flew.
V.
Farewell! Elysian island of the west, Still be thy gardens brighten'd by the rose Of a perennial spring, and winter's snows Ne'er chill the warmth of thy maternal breast! May calms for ever sleep around thy coast, And desolating storms roll far away, While art with nature vies to form thy bay, Fairer than that which Naples makes her boast! Green link between the High-lands and the Low— Thou gem, half claim'd by earth, and half by sea— May blessings, like a flood, thy homes o'erflow, And health—though elsewhere lost—be found in thee! May thy bland zephyrs to the pallid cheek Of sickness ever roseate hues restore, And they who shun the rabble and the roar Of the wild world, on thy delightful shore Obtain that soft seclusion which they seek! Be this a stranger's farewell, green Byrone, Who ne'er hath trod thy heathery heights before, And ne'er may see thee more After yon autumn sun hath westering gone; Though oft, in pensive mood, when far away, 'Mid city multitudes, his thoughts will stray To Ascog's lake, blue-sleeping in the morn, And to the happy homesteads that adorn Thy Rothesay's lovely bay.
ASCOG LODGE, EAST BAY, ROTHESAY,
September 1843.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Rothesay Castle is first mentioned in history in connexion with its siege by Husbac the Norwegian, and Olave king of Man, in 1228. Among other means of defence, it is said that the Scots poured down boiling pitch and lead on the heads of their enemies; but it was, however, at length taken, after the Norwegians had lost three hundred men. In 1263, it was retaken by the Scots after the decisive battle of Largs.
[6] This bid was the scene of a conflict between the men of Bute and the troops of Lisle, the English governor, in which that general was slain, and his severed head, presented to the Lord High Steward, was suspended from the battlements of the castle.
[7] In 1398, Robert the Third constituted his eldest son Duke of Rothesay, a title still held by every male heir-apparent to the British crown. It was the first introduction of the ducal dignity—originally a Norman one—into Scotland.
[8] The walls forming the choir of the very ancient church dedicated to the Holy Virgin are still nearly entire, and stand close to the present parish church of Rothesay. Within a traceried niche, on one side, is the recumbent figure of a knight in complete armour, apparently of the kind in use about the time of Robert the Second or Third. His feet are upon a lion couchant, and his head upon a faithful watch-dog, with a collar, in beautiful preservation, encircling its neck. The coat-of-arms denotes the person represented to have been of royal lineage. Popular tradition individualizes him as the "Stout Stewart of Bonkill" of Blind Harry the minstrel, who fell with Sir John the Grahame at the battle of Falkirk—although that hero was buried near the field of action, as his tombstone there in the old churchyard still records.