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

Earn, the River

To the River Earn

By Thomas Pringle (1789–1834)

THOU, mountain stream, whose early torrent course

Hath many a drear and distant region seen,

Windest thy downward way with slackened force,

As with the journey thou hadst wearied been;

And, all enamored of these margins green,

Delight’st to wander with a sportive tide;

Seeming with refluent current still to glide

Around the hazel banks that o’er thee lean.

Like thee, wild stream! my wearied soul would roam

(Forgetful of life’s dark and troublous hour),

Through scenes where Fancy frames her fairy bower,

And Love, enchanted, builds his cottage-home:

But time and tide wait not, and I, like thee,

Must go where tempests rage, and wrecks bestrew the sea!