For Allon has, of each and all,

An aged Piper-store,

Strains that may reach the widest range

Of legendary lore;

From those that led their fathers forth

To conquer or to die,

To those which, in the olden time,
Taught ladies' hearts to sigh.

And well may Island Chieftains love,
And Island Ladies too,

The melodies his skill can make

Thus peal their castles through;

Their proudest, or most pensive key,

Recals full many a sound

From childhood's bright and by-gone hours,

By nature echo'd round.

What Southern ears, or Mainland taste,

Might reckon harsh or rude,

Has harmony to those who dwell

In sea-girt solitude;

For they have known from infancy

The wheeling eagle's cry,

And heard the caverns, rocks, and cliffs,

Re-echo its reply.

And they have heard on Mull's lone coast,

Or Col's more rocky shore,

When roused by tempests in their pride,

The bursting breakers roar ;

And listen'd to the anthems peal'd
By mingling wind and wave,
Joining their choral harmonies
In Staffa's mighty cave!

The storms which strew with wrecks the shore

Of many a Western Isle,

Or fitful gusts like those which sweep

Around Iona's pile;

The doleful songs, tradition tells

The plaintive mermaid sings,

All these have fact or fancy made

To them familiar things.

And deeper grow the shadows

Beneath the linden trees,

And pines, whose boughs wave sadly,

Like moan of far-off seas.

And hark! how slow and solemn
Rings out the distant chime;
Telling how hours rush onward
Down, down the gulf of Time.

On to the pathless ocean,
Eternity's dark main,

The passing years are sweeping-
We greet them not again!

Full many months, sweet river,
Have flown since last I stood
Gazing on thy dark torrent

That flings its spray-like flood

Far o'er the silent waters

On whose clear bosom lies

The faint and dying radiance

Of these bright evening skies.

I've seen a mighty city,

And dwelt within her walls, I've seen her proud flags waving O'er domes and palace-halls.

But there was much of sorrow,
Though much of revelry,
In the haunts of that great city,
On the margin of the sea.

I saw the proud and noble
Fall in one little day;

A change came o'er their pathway,
And I saw their hopes decay.

And restless, and for ever

Around the homes of men,

Some wondrous change seems working, A tide that none can stem!