And then their ringing laughter steals
From some sequestered glen,
A fitting place for fays to sport
Is pleasant Hawthornden.
'T were sweet indeed to linger here,
And list the streamlet's sound,
And see poetic fancies spring
Up, like the flowers around,
Up, as the creeping ivy wreathes
Its green and gadding spray,
And from the gay and heartless crowd
Steal evermore away.
Yes, sweet, if life were but a dream,
And we, on charmed ground,
Were free to choose at pleasure's call,
And not to judgment bound.
But Duty spreads a different path,
And we her call must ken;
And so a kind and long farewell
To classic Hawthornden.
Wednesday, September 9, 1840.
"Down, down, precipitous and rude,
The rocks abruptly go."
The rock, on which the rear-wall of the mansion-house of Hawthornden is built, descends steeply more
