ADDRESS TO KILCHURN CASTLE

Child of loud-throated War! the mountain Stream

Roars in thy hearing; but thy hour of rest

Is come, and thou art silent in thy age;

Save when the wind sweeps by and sounds are caught

Ambiguous, neither wholly thine nor theirs.

Oh! there is life that breathes not; Powers there are

That touch each other to the quick in modes

Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive,

No soul to dream of. What art Thou, from care

Cast off — abandoned by thy rugged Sire,

Nor by soft Peace adopted; though, in place

And in dimension, such that thou might'st seem

But a mere footstool to yon sovereign Lord,

Huge Cruachan, ( a thing that meaner hills

Might crush, nor know that it had suffered harm;)

Yet he, not loth, in favour of thy claims

To reverence, suspends his own; submitting

All that the God of Nature hath conferred,

All that he holdsin common with the stars,

To the memorial majesty of Time

Impersonated in thy calm decay!

Take, then, thy seat, Vicegerent unreproved!

Now, while a farewell gleam of evening light

Is fondly lingering on thy shattered front,

Do thou, in turn, be paramount; and rule

Over the pomp and beauty of a scene

Whose mountains, torrents, lake, and woods, unite

To pay thee homage; and with these are joined,

In willing admiration and respect,

Two Hearts, which in thy presence might be called

Youthful as Spring.— Shade of departed Power,

Skeleton of unfleshed humanity,

The chronicle were welcome that should call

Into the compass of distinct regard

The toils and struggles of thy infant years!

Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice;

Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye,

Frozen by distance; so, majestic Pile,

To the perception of this Age, appear

Thy fierce beginnings, softened and subdued

And quieted in character — the strife,

The pride, the fury uncontrollable,

Lost on the aerial heights of the Crusades!”