# Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Hawthornden

HAWTHORNDEN.
Though Scotia hath a thousand scenes
 To strike the traveller's eye,
Clear-bosomed lakes, and leaping streams,
 And mountains bleak and high;
Yet when he seeks his native clime
 And ingle-side again, 'T would be a pity, had he missed
 To visit Hawthornden.
Down, down, precipitous and rude,
 The rocks abruptly go,
While through their deep and narrow gorge
 Foams on the Esk below;
Yet though it plunges strong and bold,
 Its murmurs meet the ear,
Like fretful childhood's weak complaint,
 Half smothered in its fear.
There's plenty, in my own dear land,
 Of cave and wild cascade,
And all my early years were spent
 In such romantic glade;
And I could featly climb the cliff,
 Or forest roam and fen;
But I've been puzzled here among
 These rocks of Hawthornden.
Here, too, are labyrinthine paths
 To caverns dark and low,
Wherein, they say, king Robert Bruce
 Found refuge from his foe;
And still amid their relics old
 His stalwart sword they keep,
Which telleth tales of cloven heads
 And gashes dire and deep:
While sculptured in the yielding stone
 Full many a niche they show,
Where erst his library he stored,
 (The guide-boy told us so.)
Slight need had he of books, I trow,
 Mid hordes of savage men,
And precious little time to read
 At leagured Hawthornden.
Loud pealing from those caverns drear,
 In old disastrous times,
The Covenanter's nightly hymn
 Upraised its startling chimes;
Here too they stoutly stood at bay,
 Or frowning sped along,
To meet the highborn cavalier
 In conflict fierce and strong.
And here's the hawthorn-broidered nook,
 Where Drummond, not in vain,
Awaited his inspiring muse,
 And wooed her dulcet strain.
And there's the oak, beneath whose shade
 He welcomed tuneful Ben,
And still the memory of their words
 Is nursed in Hawthornden.
Flowers! Flowers! how thick and rich they grow,
 Along the garden fair,
And sprinkle on the dewy sod
 Their gifts of fragrance rare.
Methinks from many a heather bell
 Peeps forth some fairy lance,
And then a tiny foot protrudes,
 All ready for the dance;
Methinks 'neath yon broad laurel leaf
 They hold their revels light,
Imprinting with a noiseless step
 The mossy carpet bright;
And then their ringing laughter steals
 From some sequestered glen,
A fitting place for fays to sport
 Is pleasant Hawthornden.
'T were sweet indeed to linger here,
 And list the streamlet's sound,
And see poetic fancies spring
 Up, like the flowers around,
Up, as the creeping ivy wreathes
 Its green and gadding spray,
And from the gay and heartless crowd
 Steal evermore away.
Yes, sweet, if life were but a dream,
 And we, on charmed ground,
Were free to choose at pleasure's call,
 And not to judgment bound.
But Duty spreads a different path,
 And we her call must ken;
And so a kind and long farewell
 To classic Hawthornden.
Wednesday, September 9, 1840.
"Down, down, precipitous and rude,
 The rocks abruptly go."
The rock, on which the rear-wall of the mansion-house of Hawthornden is built, descends steeply more ​than a hundred feet to the narrow passage, or abyss, where the Esk makes its way. This mansion, the seat of Sir Francis Drummond Walker, is a modern structure, but there are broken arches and moss-grown relics of an ancient baronial building, rudely, but strongly fortified.
"Where erst his library he stored."
There are a number of compartments of a honeycomb form, cut in the wall of the caves to which you descend, which bear the name of King Robert Bruce's Library. His sword also is shown at the mansion.
"And pealing from those caverns drear,
 In old disastrous times."
In those dens and subterranean galleries the Covenanters, in the days of "Old Mortality," found refuge. From thence also Sir Alexander Ramsay issued forth, and performed some memorable exploits, during the contests between Bruce and Baliol.
"And there's the Oak, beneath whose shade
 He welcomed tuneful Ben."
Drummond usually composed his poems in a romantic nook, scooped from the face of the cliff, and embosomed in hawthorn. But when Ben Jonson came ​on foot from London, to pass a few weeks with him in his sylvan retreat, he received him under the broad branches of a venerable Oak, addressing him with,
" Welcome, welcome, royal Ben,"
to which the poet-laureate replied,
"Thank ye, thank ye, Hawthornden."
The wonderfully romantic scenery of this classic spot, the wild rocks, the winding river, the secluded walks, the glens, the caverns, the ancient oak, the climbing ivy, the garden-seats, the many flowers, are never to be forgotten. Methought the spirit of Drummond still presided there; and I have seldom felt a stronger desire to linger where I had no right to remain. A laborious walk of two miles brought us to Roslin Chapel, which bears date in 1328, and is still in the possession of the "lordly line of high St. Clair." It is sustaining repairs by the Earl of Roslin, and has some exquisite carvings, and a few designs from Scripture subjects, sculptured in stone of a soft material. Roslin Castle is a fine ruin, but apart from historical association possesses little interest.