Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/93

And I could featly climb the cliff,
    Or forest roam and fen;
But I've been puzzled here among
    These rocks of Hawthornden.

Here, too, are labyrinthine paths
    To caverns dark and low,
Wherein, they say, king Robert Bruce
    Found refuge from his foe;
And still amid their relics old
    His stalwart sword they keep,
Which telleth tales of cloven heads
    And gashes dire and deep:

While sculptured in the yielding stone
    Full many a niche they show,
Where erst his library he stored,
    (The guide-boy told us so.)
Slight need had he of books, I trow,
    Mid hordes of savage men,
And precious little time to read.
    At leagured Hawthornden.

Loud pealing from those caverns drear,
    In old disastrous times,
The Covenanter's nightly hymn
    Upraised its startling chimes;