Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore
O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene.
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing west,
Proclaim'd the speed of winged day[1].
When Burns moved from Ayrshire to Nithsdale, he found at his new home another valley and another river that could minister to his inspiration. The Nith took the place of the Ayr. But it could not wholly fill that place, for its landscape is less ample, the hills come closer down upon the valley, while the river, in its lower course, curves from side to side in a wide alluvial plain, without the variety that marks the lower part of the Ayr. We seem to recognize the influence of these differences in the allusions in the songs.
The landscapes of Burns are marked by some curious limitations. Though he was born within sight of the picturesque mountain group of Arran, it does not come within his poetic outlook[2]. Though the 'craggy ocean pyramid' of the Clyde rose so stupendously from the firth in front of him, he makes no use of it further than to tell how 'Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig.' Its distant grandeur does not seem to have struck his imagination. Indeed, if we examine his treatment of scenery, we may observe that it is the nearer detail that appeals to him. His pictures are exquisite foregrounds with seldom any
- ↑ 'To Mary in Heaven.'
- ↑ This was remarked by Wordsworth in the prefatory note to his lines on Mossgiel.
