Robert Burns

Castle Gordon

STREAMS that glide in orient pIains,
Never bound by winter’s chains!
  Glowing here on golden sands,
There commix’d with foulest stains
  From tyranny’s empurpled hands:
These, their richly-gleaming waves,
I leave to tyrants and their slaves;
Give me the stream that sweetly laves
  The banks by Castle Gordon.

Spicy forests, ever gay,
Shading from the burning ray
  Hapless wretches sold to toil,
Or the ruthless native’s way,
  Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil:
Woods that ever verdant wave,
I leave the tyrant and the slave;
Give me the groves that lofty brave
  The storms, by Castle Gordon.

Wildly here without control,
Nature reigns and rules the whole;
  In that sober pensive mood,
Dearest to the feeling soul,
  She plants the forest, pours the flood;
Life’s poor day I’ll musing rave,
And find at night a sheltering cave,
Where waters flow and wild woods wave,
  By bonnie Castle Gordon.