Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sung 3. STEPPING WESTWARD. While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sun-set, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What you are stepping westward?" "What you are stepping westward ?" -'Twould be a wildish destiny, If we, who thus together roam "Yea." In a strange Land, and far from home, The dewy ground was dark and cold; And stepping westward seem'd to be I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound The voice was soft, and she who spake The very sound of courtesy: It's power was felt; and while my eye A human sweetness with the thought 4. GLEN-ALMAIN, or the NARROW GLEN. In this still place, remote from men, Of stormy war, and violent death; And should, methinks, when all was past, Have rightfully been laid at last Where rocks were rudely heap'd, and rent As by a spirit turbulent; Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild, And every thing unreconciled; In some complaining, dim retreat, For fear and melancholy meet; But this is calm; there cannot be Does then the Bard sleep here indeed? What matters it? I blame them not Was moved; and in this way express'd Their notion of it's perfect rest. A Convent, even a hermit's Cell ph Would break the silence of this Dell: It is not quiet, is not ease; But something deeper far than these: Is of the grave; and of austere Lies buried in this lonely place. |