Poem by Arthur Henry Hallam

A Farewell to Glenarbac

WHEN grief is felt along the blood,
  And checks the breath with sighs unsought,
’T is then that Memory’s power is wooed
  To soothe by ancient forms of thought.
It is not much, yet in that day	
  Will seem a gladsome wakening;
And such to me, in joy’s decay,
  The memory of the Roebuck Glen.

Nor less, when fancies have their bent,
  And eager passion sweeps the mind;
’T will bless to catch a calm content,
  From happy moment far behind.
O, it is of a heavenly brood
  That chastening recollection!
And such to me, in joyous mood,	
  The memory of the Roebuck Glen.

I grieve to quit this lime-tree walk,
  The Clyde, the Leven’s milder blue
To lose, yon craigs that nest the hawk
  Will soar no longer in my view.
Yet of themselves small power to move
  Have they: their light ’s a borrowed thing
Won from her eyes, for whom I love
  The memory of the Roebuck Glen.

O, dear to nature, not in vain
  The mountain winds have breathed on thee!
Mild virtues of a noble strain,
  And beauty making pure and free,
Pass to thee from the silent hills;
  And hence, where’er thy sojourning,
Thine eye with gentle weeping fills
  At memory of the Roebuck Glen.

Thou speedest to the sunny shore,
  Where first thy presence on me shone;
Alas! I know not whether more
  These eyes shall claim thee as their own:
But should a kindly star prevail,
  And should we meet far hence again,
How sweet in other lands to hail
  The memory of the Roebuck Glen.

O, when the thought comes o’er my heart
  Of happy meetings yet to be,
The very feeling that thou art
  Is deep as that of life to me;
Yet should sad instinct in my breast
  Speak true, and darker chance obtain,
Bless with one tear my final rest,
  One memory from the Roebuck Glen.

1. Written at Caudebec in Normandy
2. Written in Edinburgh

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