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Memorials of a Tour in Scotland: VI. GLEN-ALMAIN;

OR, THE NARROW GLEN

IN this still place, remote from men,
         Sleeps Ossian, in the NARROW GLEN;
         In this still place, where murmurs on
         But one meek streamlet, only one:
         He sang of battles, and the breath
         Of stormy war, and violent death;
         And should, methinks, when all was past,
         Have rightfully been laid at last
         Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent
         As by a spirit turbulent;
         Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,  
         And everything unreconciled;
         In some complaining, dim retreat,
         For fear and melancholy meet;
         But this is calm; there cannot be
         A more entire tranquillity.
           Does then the Bard sleep here indeed?
         Or is it but a groundless creed?
         What matters it?—I blame them not
         Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot
         Was moved; and in such way expressed      
         Their notion of its perfect rest.
         A convent, even a hermit’s cell,
         Would break the silence of this Dell:
         It is not quiet, is not ease;
         But something deeper far than these:
         The separation that is here
         Is of the grave; and of austere
         Yet happy feelings of the dead:
         And, therefore, was it rightly said
         That Ossian, last of all his race!  
         Lies buried in this lonely place.
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