John Stuart Blackie

Song of Ben Cruachan

BEN CRUACHAN is king of the mountains
  That gird in the lovely Loch Awe;
Loch Ettive is fed from his fountains,
  By the streams of the dark-rushing Awe.
        With his peak so high
        He cleaves the sky
  That smiles on his old gray crown,
        While the mantle green,
        On his shoulders seen,
  In many a fold flows down.

He looks to the north, and he renders
  A greeting to Nevis Ben;
And Nevis, in white snowy splendors,
  Gives Cruachan greeting again.
        O’er dread Glencoe
        The greeting doth go,
  And where Ettive winds fair in the glen;
        And he hears the call
        In his steep north wall,
  “God bless thee, old Cruachan Ben.”

When the north winds their forces muster,
  And ruin rides high on the storm,
All calm, in the midst of their bluster,
  He stands with his forehead enorm.
        When block on block,
        With thundering shock,
  Comes hurtled confusedly down,
        No whit recks he,
        But laughs to shake free
  The dust from his old gray crown.

And while torrents on torrents are pouring
  Down his sides with a wild, savage glee,
And when louder the loud Awe is roaring,
  And the soft lake swells to a sea,
        He smiles through the storm,
        And his heart grows warm
  As he thinks how his streams feed the plains,
        And the brave old Ben
        Grows young again,
  And swells with his lusty veins.

For Cruachan is king of the mountains
  That gird in the lovely Loch Awe;
Loch Ettive is fed from his fountains,
  By the streams of the dark-rushing Awe.
        Ere Adam was made
        He reared his head
  Sublime o’er the green winding glen;
        And when flame wraps the sphere,
        O’er earth’s ashes shall peer
  The peak of the old granite Ben.