Poem by John Stuart Blackie

Bonnie Strathnaver

BONNIE Strathnaver! Sutherland’s pride!
With thy stream softly flowing and mead spreading wide.
Bonnie Strathnaver! where now are the men
That peopled with gladness thy green-mantled glen?
  Bonnie Strathnaver! where now are the men
  That peopled with gladness thy green-mantled glen?
                        Bonnie Strathnaver!

Bonnie Strathnaver! Sutherland’s pride!
Sweet is the breath of the birks on thy side;
But where is the blue smoke that curled from thy glen,
When thy lone hills were dappled with dwellings of men?
                        Bonnie Strathnaver!

Bonnie Strathnaver! O, fearful to tell
Are the harsh deeds once done on thy bonnie green dell!
When to rocks of the storm-brewing ocean were driven
The men on thy green turfy walks who had thriven.
                        Bonnie Strathnaver!

When the strong-sinewed lad and the light-tripping maid
Looked their last on the hills where their infancy strayed;
When the gray dropping sire and the old hirpling dame
Were chased from their hearths by the fierce-spreading flame.
                        Bonnie Strathnaver!

Bonnie Strathnaver! Sutherland’s pride!
Wide is the ruin that spreads on thy side!
The bramble now climbs o’er the old ruined wall,
And the green fern is rank in the tenantless hall
                        Of bonnie Strathnaver!

Bonnie Strathnaver! Sutherland’s pride!
Loud is the baa of the sheep on thy side;
But the pipe, and the song, and the dance are no more,
And gone the brave clansmen that trod thy green floor.
                        Bonnie Strathnaver!

Bonnie Strathnaver! Sutherland’s pride!
Vain are the tears that I weep on thy side.
The praise of the bard is the meed of the glen,	
But where is the charm that can bring back the men
                        To bonnie Strathnaver?

1. Ben Muichdhui
2. Sabbath Hymn on the Mountains
3. Loch Ericht
4. The Emigrant Lassie
5. The Old Soldier of the Gareloch Head

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