Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/109

    Like Highland maiden, sweetly fair,
The snood and rosebud in her hair,
Yon emerald isles, how calm they sleep
On the pure bosom of the deep;
How bright they throw, with waking eye,
Their lone charms on the passer by;
The willow, with its drooping stem,
The thistle's hyacinthine gem,
The feathery fern, the graceful deer,
Quick starting as the strand we near,
While, with closed wing and scream subdued,
The osprays nurse their kingly brood.

    High words of praise, the pulse that stir,
Burst from each joyous voyager;
And Scotia's streams and mountains hoar,
The wildness of her sterile shore,
Her broken caverns, that prolong
The echoes of her minstrel song,
Methinks might catch the enthusiast-tone,
That breathes amid these waters lone.
Even I, from far Columbia's shore,
Whose lakes a mightier tribute pour,
And bind with everlasting chain
The unshorn forest to the main,
Superior's surge, like ocean proud,
That leaps to lave the vexing cloud,
Huron, that rolls with gathering frown
A world of waters darkly down