Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 IX. Address To Kilchurn Castle, Upon Loch Awe

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 holds in 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!