In a house
Near the loch
Awaits a bride
For her wedding day.
Soon her groom
Will take her hand.

Extending his hand,
At his father’s house,
Out reaches the groom
Toward the loch
Saying, “in a handful days
I will have my bride.”

Meanwhile the bride,
With her gentle hand,
Writes the day
On invitations in her house;
Sending thoughts across the loch
Toward her groom.

Simultaneously the groom
Thinks of his bride,
Receiving her thoughts from the loch.
His promise on her hand,
Hers is in his father’s house,
But he won't see it until the day.

In just a few short days
With his friends the groom
Will leave his father’s house
And await the bride
To take her hand
At the ceremony near the loch.

And in the city of the loch
Their lives most historic day
Will be when they take each other’s hands
And the groom
Will have his bride
And will make a home of their house.

But until then… Toward the loch the groom,
Awaiting the appointed day of his bride,
With lovesickness stretches his hand toward her house.

Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove:
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:
Yet, Caledonia, belov’d are thy mountains,
Round their white summits though elements war:
Though cataracts foam ’stead of smooth-flowing fountains,
  I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr.

Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy, wander’d:
  My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid;
On chieftains, long perish’d, my memory ponder’d,
  As daily I strode through the pine-cover’d glade;
I sought not my home, till the day’s dying glory
  Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star;
For fancy was cheer’d, by traditional story,
  Disclos’d by the natives of dark Loch na Garr.

“Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices
  Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?”
Surely, the soul of the hero rejoices,
  And rides on the wind, o’er his own Highland vale!
Round Loch na Garr, while the stormy mist gathers,
  Winter presides in his cold icy car:
Clouds, there, encircle the forms of my Fathers;
  They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch na Garr.

“Ill starr’d, though brave, did no visions foreboding
  Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?”
Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden,
  Victory crown’d not your fall with applause:
Still were you happy, in death’s earthy slumber,
  You rest with your clan, in the caves of Braemar;
The Pibroch resounds, to the piper’s loud number,
  Your deeds, on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr.

Years have roll’d on, Loch na Garr, since I left you,
  Years must elapse, ere I tread you again:
Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you,
  Yet still are you dearer than Albion’s plain:
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic,
  To one who has rov’d on the mountains afar:
Oh! for the crags that are wild and majestic,
  The steep, frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr.