75%

Littell's Living Age/Volume 150/Issue 1942/Holidays

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
For works with similar titles, see Holiday.

Originally published in Blackwood's Magazine.

234917Littell's Living AgeVolume 150, Issue 1942 : Holidays

Once more, once more again
     On me, from city cares who fly,
     Lochleven, like a loving eye,
     Looks round the shoulder of the hills,
     And all life’s artificial ills
Pass from me with their pain!

The smoke will leave a stain;
     In absence of the cleansing shower
     The dust will dim the freshest flower:
     Happy the heart on whom the dust
     Of active life (for blow it must)
Grows not a thing in grain!

Nor are those ills in vain:
     They come upon our passions here
     Like winter rigors on the year —
     The purer are the daisies’ dyes
     When spring comes round, bluer the skies,
And welcomer the rain!

To some the breezy main;
     To some the moors and burns; to some
     Who cannot go, sweet thoughts will come;
     To me, enfranchisement from ills
     When gleams, as now, between the hills
Lochleven o’er the plain!