On My Sister's Birthday

Arthur Henry Hallam

(Written at Callandar, near Loch Katrine)

IX
Yet why to-day this mournful tone,
When thou on gladness hast a claim?
How ill befits a boding moan
From one who bears a brother's name!
Here fortune, fancifully kind,
Has led me to a lovely spot.
Where not a tree or rock I find,
My sister, that recalls thee not!

X
Benan is worth a poet's praise;
Bold are the cairns of Benvenue;
Most beautiful the winding ways
Where Trossachs open on the view:
But other grace Loch Katrine wears.
When viewed by me from Ellen's Isle;
A magic tint on all appears;
It comes from thy remembered smile!

XI
'Twas there that Lady of the Lake
Moored to yon gnarled tree her boat.
And where Fitzjames's horn bade wake
Each mountain echo's lengthened note;
'Twas from that slope the maiden heard:
Sweet tale I but sweeter far to me.
From dreamy blendings of that word,
With all my thoughts and hopes of thee.

3rd August 1829

The mesmerically, magisterially terrible poet, Wiliam McGonagall, also wrote a poem about Loch Katrine.


Main Location:

Callander, Stirling, Scotland


Other locations:

View of Loch Katrie from the Trossachs