(At Inversneyde, upon Loch Lomond)

  Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head:
And these grey rocks; that household lawn;
Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn;
This fall of water that doth make
A murmur near the silent lake;
This little bay; a quiet road
That holds in shelter thy Abode—
In truth together do ye seem
Like something fashioned in a dream;
Such Forms as from their covert peep
When earthly cares are laid asleep!
But, O fair Creature! in the light
Of common day, so heavenly bright,
I bless Thee, Vision as thou art,
I bless thee with a human heart;
God shield thee to thy latest years!
Thee, neither know I, nor thy peers;
And yet my eyes are filled with tears.

      With earnest feeling I shall pray
For thee when I am far away:
For never saw I mien, or face,
In which more plainly I could trace
Benignity and home-bred sense
Ripening in perfect innocence.
Here scattered, like a random seed,
Remote from men, Thou dost not need
The embarrassed look of shy distress,
And maidenly shamefacedness:
Thou wear’st upon thy forehead clear
The freedom of a Mountaineer:
A face with gladness overspread!
Soft smiles, by human kindness bred!
And seemliness complete, that sways
Thy courtesies, about thee plays;
With no restraint, but such as springs
From quick and eager visitings
Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
Of thy few words of English speech:
A ******* sweetly brooked, a strife
That gives thy gestures grace and life!
So have I, not unmoved in mind,
Seen birds of tempest-loving kind—
Thus beating up against the wind.

      What hand but would a garland cull
For thee who art so beautiful?
O happy pleasure! here to dwell
Beside thee in some heathy dell;
Adopt your homely ways, and dress,
A Shepherd, thou a Shepherdess!
But I could frame a wish for thee
More like a grave reality:
Thou art to me but as a wave
Of the wild sea; and I would have
Some claim upon thee, if I could,
Though but of common neighbourhood.
What joy to hear thee, and to see!
Thy elder Brother I would be,
Thy Father—anything to thee!

      Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace
Hath led me to this lonely place.
Joy have I had; and going hence
I bear away my recompense.
In spots like these it is we prize
Our Memory, feel that she hath eyes:
Then, why should I be loth to stir?
I feel this place was made for her;
To give new pleasure like the past,
Continued long as life shall last.
Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
Sweet Highland Girl! from thee to part;
For I, methinks, till I grow old,
As fair before me shall behold,
As I do now, the cabin small,
The lake, the bay, the waterfall;
And thee, the spirit of them all!

This wall you build around angelic things
to keep their halos shiny-bright, instead
you'll never hear the sound of downy wings.

These Precious Moments smiles and wedding-rings
(for mixed-*** couples only), when they wed,
this airtight wall around angelic things,

a thousand miles from where a seraph sings
God's love for hated folk and underfed;
you'll never hear the sound of downy wings

unless you break the prejudice that brings
the boundary where angels fear to tread,
this airtight wall around angelic things

that shutters out angelic visitings,
or when you too are dying on your bed
you'll never hear the sound of downy wings.

you never know with whom they'll break their bread,
or so the writer to the Hebrews said;
This wall you build around angelic things
Will never hear the sound of downy wings.

Time to be free,
to set my mind between a world of sense and one of joy.
A two tab kind of day.
Tiny white papers in my pocket made their way under my tongue,
I sat there for a bit,
chewed and swallowed.
Waiting for my body to sink,
to hit that deep bottomless interiority;
I sat fixed on the horizon.
Tall beautiful pines towered over the cove,
casting it with shadows of remorse.
Serenity, peace dropped slowly over me from the veils of darkness.
Longing for the visitings of imaginative power,
to set me free from the pit of my own mind.  
Butterflies left the sky above and made their way to my body,
soon they fled from my empty gullet,
oozed their way to my hands and feet;
the tingles embraced me.
Restlessness.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Except for the title none of this is mine; the direct quotation following is from Shakespeare:

                                              Jill Macbeth

…Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it! Come to my woman’s *******,
And take my milk for gall, your murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry, “Hold, hold!”

                                         -Macbeth I.v.41-62

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Macbeth, by William Shakespeare