Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Dunmore

Dunmore

By George Gilfillan (1813–1878)

(From Night)

I LIE, in vision, on thy top, Dunmore,—

Dearest to me of all old Scotland’s hills,—

And see not the well-known delicious view,

The little village with its peaceful spire,

The rivers three, piercing the plain and woods,

To meet and marry at yon simple bridge;

Abruchill Castle, like a silver spot

Spilt by the sun among the night-like hills,

And, shining there in light unquenchable,

The gorge of terror where a fiend inclosed

In “hell of waters” howls forevermore,

Amid thick woods and torture-riven chasms;

Glenlednick’s deep and solitary glen

Returning ever a wild torrent’s voice,

Protesting ’gainst the Caldron’s agony,

To which resistlessly ’t is hurried on;

The long-loved vale through which Kilmeny went

Alone, through flowery heath and feathered birch,

To meet the visions of celestial day.

Loch Earn seen scarcely at the utmost edge,

Like a blue breach amidst the clouds of eve,

And over it, at twilight, huge Benmore,

A purple pillar propping the red sky.