94
Not Understood
AN EXILE’S REVERIE.[1]
WHERE Taiera sweeps by Manitoto’s plain
A Scottish exile sang this fond refrain,
Each lonely winding glen and snow-capped mount
Awoke the slumbering Spring of Memory’s fount;
Before his gaze old faces came and went,
And thus the language of his heart found vent.
A Scottish exile sang this fond refrain,
Each lonely winding glen and snow-capped mount
Awoke the slumbering Spring of Memory’s fount;
Before his gaze old faces came and went,
And thus the language of his heart found vent.
From these wild mountains crowned with crystal hoar,
My thoughts are wafted o’er the moaning sea;
Unchecked, untramelled by the Ocean’s roar,
They wing their flight, dear Caledon to thee:
The wheel of time has rolled o’er many a year,
And often have I heard Death’s mournful knell,
Since on thy shore I shed the parting tear
And bade thy noble cliffs a long farewell.
Yet in my dreams I see each youthful scene,
Old forms and faces meet my eye; again
I mingle with my schoolmates on the green,
Or gather berries in the briery lane.
The heather smells as sweet as when I strayed
To worship Nature o’er the purple hill.
And still, unchanged, the waving brackens shade
The murmuring burn that turns the village mill.
The old kirk seems the same, as when of yore,
I offered up my Sabbath morning’s prayer
To Him whom all creation should adore.
Ah! where now are the friends that worshipped there!
My dream is past. It stands not mornings test,
Stern truth, with mocking finger points around,
And whispers, “All the loved ones are at rest—
They sleep beneath each daisy covered mound.”
My thoughts are wafted o’er the moaning sea;
Unchecked, untramelled by the Ocean’s roar,
They wing their flight, dear Caledon to thee:
The wheel of time has rolled o’er many a year,
And often have I heard Death’s mournful knell,
Since on thy shore I shed the parting tear
And bade thy noble cliffs a long farewell.
Yet in my dreams I see each youthful scene,
Old forms and faces meet my eye; again
I mingle with my schoolmates on the green,
Or gather berries in the briery lane.
The heather smells as sweet as when I strayed
To worship Nature o’er the purple hill.
And still, unchanged, the waving brackens shade
The murmuring burn that turns the village mill.
The old kirk seems the same, as when of yore,
I offered up my Sabbath morning’s prayer
To Him whom all creation should adore.
Ah! where now are the friends that worshipped there!
My dream is past. It stands not mornings test,
Stern truth, with mocking finger points around,
And whispers, “All the loved ones are at rest—
They sleep beneath each daisy covered mound.”
- ↑ Prize Poem of the Caledonian Society of Otago, 1869.
