Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
The Old Soldier of the Gareloch Head
By John Stuart Blackie (18091895)I
And a soldier I ha’e been;
The scars upon my breast
Tell the wars that I have seen.
But now I ’m old and worn,
And my locks are thinly spread,
And I ’m come to die in peace
By the Gareloch Head.
Oft a wandering I would go
By the rough shores of Loch Long,
Up to lone Glencroe.
But now I ’m fain to rest,
And my resting-place I ’ve made
On the green and gentle bosom
Of the Gareloch Head.
Like a lamb amid the flocks,
With her eyes of bonnie blue,
And her gowden locks.
And here we often met,
When with lightsome foot we sped
O’er the green and grassy knolls
At the Gareloch Head.
O, the salt tear in my ee
Forbids my heart to hide
What Jeanie was to me!
’T was here my Jeanie died,
And they scooped her lowly bed
’Neath the green and grassy turf
At the Gareloch Head.
From the leafy forest torn,
She fell, and I ’ll fall soon,
Like a sheaf of yellow corn.
For I ’m sere and weary now,
And I soon shall make my bed
With my Jeanie, ’neath the turf
At the Gareloch Head.