To the Setting Sun

John Leyden

Written in the Isle of Iona, in 1800

Fair light of heaven! where is thy couch of rest?
That thy departing beams so sweetly smile:
Thou sleepest calm in that green happy isle
That rises mid the waters of the west.
Sweet are thy tidings from the land of hills
To spirits of the dead who round thee throng,
And chaunt in concert shrill thine evening song.
Whose magic sound the murmuring ocean stills:
Calm is thy rest amid these fields so green,
Where never breathes the deep heart-rending sigh,
Nor tears of sorrow dim the sufferer's eye. —
Then why revisit this unhappy scene,
Like the lone lamp that lights the sullen tomb,
To add new horrors to sepulchral gloom?

Read some other poems about the Hebrides on Poetry Atlas.


Main Location:

Isle of Iona, Island of Iona, Inner Hebrides, Scotland

Sunset on the Isle of Iona, Inner Hebrides, Scotland