Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE HIGHLANDERS, SELECTION, by ANNE GRANT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE HIGHLANDERS, SELECTION, by                    
First Line: Where yonder ridgy mountains bound the scene
Last Line: Themselves to equal indigence may bring.
Alternate Author Name(s): Grant Of Laggan, Mrs.; Mac Vigar, Anne; Macvicar, Anne


Where yonder ridgy mountains bound the scene,
The narrow opening glens that intervene
Still shelter, in some lowly nook obscure,
One poorer than the rest, -- where all are poor;
Some widow'd Matron, hopeless of relief,
Who to her secret breast confines her grief;
Dejected sighs the wintry night away,
And lonely muses all the summer day:
Her gallant sons, who, smit with honour's charms,
Pursued the phantom Fame through war's alarms,
Return no more: stretch'd on Hindostan's plain,
Or sunk beneath the' unfathomable main;
In vain her eyes the watery waste explore,
For heroes -- fated to return no more!
Let others bless the morning's reddening beam --
Foe to her peace, it breaks the' illusive dream
That, in their pride of manly bloom confest,
Restor'd the long-lost warriors to her breast;
And as they strove, with smiles of filial love,
Their widow'd parent's anguish to remove,
Through her small casement broke the' intrusive day,
And chas'd the pleasing images away!
No time can e'er her banish'd joys restore,
For, ah! a heart once broken heals no more.
The dewy beams that gleam from pity's eye,
The "still small voice" of sacred sympathy,
In vain the mourner's sorrows would beguile,
Or steal from weary woe one languid smile;
Yet what they can they do, -- the scanty store,
So often open'd for the wandering poor,
To her each cottager complacent deals,
While the kind glance the melting heart reveals;
And still, when evening streaks the west with gold,
The milky tribute from the glowing fold
With cheerful haste officious children bring,
And every smiling flower that decks the Spring:
Ah! little know the fond attentive train,
That Spring and flowrets smile for her in vain:
Yet hence they learn to reverence modest woe,
And of their little all a part bestow.
Let those to wealth and proud distinction born,
With the cold glance of insolence and scorn
Regard the suppliant wretch, and harshly grieve
The bleeding heart their bounty would relieve, --
Far different these; -- while from a bounteous heart
With the poor sufferer they divide a part;
Humbly they own that all they have is given
A boon precarious from indulgent Heaven:
And the next blighted crop, or frosty spring,
Themselves to equal indigence may bring.





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