P GEER Y. 621 
I’ve traversed many a mountain-strand, 
Abroad and in my native land, 
And it has been my lot to tread 
Where safety more than pleasure led ; 
Thus, many a waste I’ve wander’d o’er, 
Clombe many a crag, cross’d many a moor, 
But, by my halidome, 
A scene so rude, so wild as this, 
Yet so sublime in barrenness, 
Ne’er did my wandering footsteps press, 
Where’er I happ’d to roam.” 
No marvel thus the Monarch spake ; 
For rarely human eye has known 
A scene so stern as that dread lake, 
With its dark ledge of barren stone. 
Seems that primeval earthquake’s sway 
Hath rent a strange and shatter’d way 
Through the rude bosom of the hill, 
And that each naked precipice, 
Sable ravine, and dark abyss, 
Tells of the outrage still. 
The wildest glen, but this, can show 
Some touch of Nature’s genial glow ; 
On high Benmore green mosses grow, 
And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe, 
And copse on Cruchan-Ben ; 
But here,—above, around, below, 
On mountain or in glen, 
Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower, 
Nor aught of vegetative power, 
The weary eye may ken. 
For all is rocks at random thrown, 
Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone, 
As if were here denied 
The summer sun, the spring’s sweet dew, 
That clothe with many a varied hue 
The bleakest mountain-side. 
And wilder, forward as they wound, 
Were the proud cliffs and lake, profound. 
Huge terraces of granite black 
Afforded rude and cumber’d track ; 
For from the mountain hoar, 
Hurl’d headlong in some night of fear, 
When yell’d the wolf and fled the deer, © 
Loose crags had toppled o’er ; 
