I.
Twilight on Loch Katrine.
“ Wandering about in forests old,
When the last purple colour is waxing faint.”
Barry Cornwall.
Blue is the bosom of the sunless lake,1
O’er which the laden pinnance gently glides
;2
The living waters sparkle round its sides,3
As if instinct with spirit, and awake ;4
In crimson light the peak of Benvenue5
Is mantled o’er; the wooded Trosachs frown,6
And throw, with cumbrous gloom, their shadows down,7
Like giants girt with sackcloth : softly blue,8
A beauteous canopy of sky impends ;9
While, ’mid the temple of the glowing west,10
Piercing the cloudless element, ascends11
Benlomond’s conic spire and lordly crest,12
And nought disturbs the breathless silence, save13
The night breeze murmuring thro’ the goblin cave.14