John Stuart Blackie

Ben Muichdhui

O’ER broad Muichdhui sweeps the keen cold blast;
Far whirrs the snow-bred, white-winged ptarmigan;
Sheer sink the cliffs to dark Loch Etagan,
And all the hill with shattered rock lies waste.
Here brew ship-foundering storms their force divine;
Here gush the fountains of wild-flooding rivers;
Here the strong thunder frames the bolt that shivers
The giant strength of the old twisted pine.
Yet, even here, on the bare waterless brow
Of granite ruin, I found a purple flower,
A delicate flower, as fair as aught, I trow,
That toys with zephyrs in my lady’s bower.
So Nature blends her powers; and he is wise
Who to his strength no gentlest grace denies.