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

Gareloch Head

The Old Soldier of the Gareloch Head

By John Stuart Blackie (1809–1895)

I ’VE wandered east and west,

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.

When I was young and strong,

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.

’T was here my Jeanie grew,

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.

’T was here she pined and died,—

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.

Like a leaf in leafy June

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.