The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

110 THE LORD OF THE ISLES. [CANTO III.
With its dark ledge 1 of barren stone.
Seems that primeval earthquake's sway
Hath rent a strange and shatter'd way
Through the rude bosom of the hill,
And that each naked precipice,
Sable ravine, and dark abyss,
Tells of the outrage still.
The wildest glen, but this, can show
Some touch of Nature's genial glow;
On high Benmore green mosses grow,
And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe,2
And copse on Cruchan-Ben;
But here,-above, around, below,
On mountain or in glen,
Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,
Nor aught of vegetative power,
The weary eye may ken.
For all is rocks at random thrown,
Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone,
As if were here denied
The summer sun, the spring's sweet dew,
That clothe with many a varied hue
The bleakest 3 mountain-side.4
1 [MS.-" Dark banks."]
2 [MS.-" And heather bells in deep Glencoe."]
3 [MS.-" B Wairest'
4 [The Quarterly Reviewer sats, " This picture of barren
desolation is admirably touched," and if the opinion of Mr.
Turner be worth any thing,-' No words could have given a