Streams That Glide In Orient Plains

Tune--"_Morag._"
[We owe these verses to the too brief visit which the poet, in 1787,
made to Gordon Castle: he was hurried away, much against his will, by
his moody and obstinate friend William Nicol.]

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