Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/114

 But fairer Roseneath's towers, where, spreading wide,
Rolls on the mighty majesty of Clyde,
From Lennox hills, which, towering, prop the sky,
To where his fleets in spacious harbours lie;
Where, crowned with wood, fair hills embrace the bay,
Where Newport smiles in youthful lustre gay; 500
 Where the broad marsh, a shuddering surface, lies,
Fair Greenock's spires in new-born beauty rise;
And many an infant city rises round,
Emerging swiftly from the teeming ground;
So poets tell, that by prolific Nile,
Whole nations issued from the marshy soil;
And if the muse can future fates divine,
They all at last in one vast port shall join;
While groves of masts aloft in ether rise,
And cordage warping wide obscures the skies. 510
As in the film-winged bee's industrious hive,
Some stretch their wings for flight, and some arrive,
Some treasure in their cells the golden store,
And some, adventurous, fail in quest of more;
So fleets arriving here with every gale,
Within the port shall drop the flying sail;
While some departing shall their wings display,
To greet the rising, or the falling day;