In Glen Maye

The ribboned water falls with gentle sound

From mossy stone to darkly limpid pool,

Which boils and bubbles to the shining edge

Of bordering rock, and darts with leap and bound

And swirling race, farther from old Barool,

Farther from moorland gorse, from ling and sedge.

 

Sheer from the height where yellow sunbeams play,

Sheer to the gloom of wet and glistening night,

Sheer from the upper earth of light and day,

Through the green cavern of the fern and leaves,

Smooth as a rapier blade, as sharp and white,

Swift as a swallow’s flight into the eaves.

 

Here where Glen Rushen, wild and strangely blest,

Is tamed by man who christen her Glenmaye

And cuts through quarried canyon to the sea,

Here in this tortured pool lies one at rest,

The Water Bull, and o’er his tomb the spray

Weaves living garlands to his memory.

 

The Water Bull has gone, the Little Men,

The old Phynoderee, and all Themselves;

But still the water sings from old Barool,

Sings still as sweetly through the list’ning glen;

Falls still as blithely from the rocky shelves

As when Mannin there held magic rule.

 

Mona’s Herald     3.4.62