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

Glenshee

The Shepherd of Glenshee

By William Thomson (b. 1797)

I WANDER over hill and dale;

I breathe the healthful mountain gale;

Far from the city’s busy throng,

I listen to the warbler’s song;

I guide and tend my fleecy flocks,

Among the muirs, around the rocks;

And wander unconfined and free,

By bank and burn amid Glenshee.

While roaming o’er the mountain’s side,

I mark the seasons onward glide;

See winter clothe the hills with snow,

And make the rivers overflow;

Behold the sunshine and the showers

In spring renew the leafless bowers;

And list the hum of busy bee

Among the blossoms in Glenshee.

When summer shines on howm and height,

And fills the bosom with delight;

When bloom adorns the sylvan dell,

And purple heath-flowers deck the fell,—

At gloaming gray, amid the glade,

I wander with my mountain maid;

And there is none like her I see,

The fairest flower in all Glenshee!

I love to mark, begemmed with dew,

In shady dell, the violet blue;

I joy to view the crystal stream

In morning’s cloudless radiance gleam;

But dearer, sweeter, lovelier far

Than opening rose or shining star,

Than all I know, than all I see,

The blossom that adorns Glenshee!