What blooming banks, sweet Earn, or fairest Tay,
Or Almond doth embrace! These many a day
We haunted, where our pleasant pastorals
We sweetly sung, and merry madrigals.
Sometime bold Mars, and sometimes Venus fair,
And sometimes Phobus’ love, we did declare;
Sometimes on pleasant plains, sometimes on mountains,
And sometimes sweetly sung beside the fountains.
But in these banks where flows St Conil’s well,
The which Thessalian tempe doth excel,
Whose name and matchless fame for to declare
In this most doleful ditty must I spare;
Yet thus dare say that in the world again
No place more meet for muses to remain;
For shadowing walks, where silver brooks do spring,
And smelling arbors, where birds sweetly sing,
In heavenly music, warbling like Arion,
Like Thracian, Orpheus, Linus, or Amphion,
That Helicon, Parnasus, Pindus fair,
To these most pleasant banks scarce can compare:
These be the banks where all the muses dwell,
And haunt about that crystal brook and well;
Into these banks chiefly did we repair,
From sunshine shadowed, and from blasting air,
Where with the muses we did sing our song,
Sometimes for pleasure, sometimes for our wrong:
For in those days none durst approach their table
But we to taste their dainties;-this no fable.
From thence to Methven Wood we took our way,
Soon be Aurora fair did kythe the day;
And having rested there some little space,
Again we did betake us to our chace,
Raising the does and roes forth of their dens,
And watry fowls out of the marshy fens;
That if Diana had been in that place,
Would thought in hunting we had stained her grace.
To Methven Castle, where Gall did declare,
How Margarget Tudor, queen, sometimes dwelt there,
First daughter to King Henry seventh, who closes
York, Lancaster in one-England’s two roses:
A happy union after long debate;
But union much more happy and more great;
Even by that same queen springs, and by her race,
Whereby all Britain joys long-wished peace;
Hence came King James his title to the crown
Of England, by both parents of renown;
Hence comes our happy peace: so be it aye
That peace with truth in Britain flourish may.
Right over to Forteviot did we hye,
And there the ruin’d castle did we spy
Of Malcolm Kenmure, whom Macduff, then Thane
Of Fife (so called), from England brought again,
And fiercely did pursue Tyrant Macbeth,
Usurper of the crown, even to the death;
Their castle’s ruins when we did consider,
We saw that wasting time makes all things wither.
To Dupplin, then, and shades of Aberdalgie,
From thence to Mailer, and came home by Craigie;
Soon by that time, before three days were done,
We went to see the monuments of Scone;
As was our promise, Scone’s nymphs see we must,
For in such vows we were exceeding just;
And there with Ovid thus did we declare,-
Here is a green, where stood a temple fair,
Where was the fatal chair and marble stone,
Having this motto rare inside thereon:
“This is the stone, if fates do not deceive,
Where’er its found the Scots shall kingdom have,”
Which Longshanks did transport to Troynovant,
As Troy took in the horse by Gr
(Henry Adamson)
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