rth of Clyde, and carry their streaming flags above
the woods of Ardgowan. And there stands Ben. What cares he for all the
multitude of other lochs his gaze commands--what cares he even for the
salt-sea foam tumbling far away off into the ocean? All-sufficient for
his love is his own loch at his feet. How serenely looks down the Giant!
Is there not something very sweet in his sunny smile? Yet were you to
see him frown--as we have seen him--your heart would sink; and what
would become of you--if all alone by your own single self, wandering
over the wide moor that glooms in utter houselessness between his
corries and Glenfalloch--what if you were to hear the strange mutterings
we have heard, as if moaning from an earthquake among quagmires, till
you felt that the sound came from the sky, and all at once from the
heart of night that had strangled day burst a shattering peal that
might waken the dead--for Benlomond was in wrath, and vented it in
thunder?

Perennially enjoying the blessing of a milder clime, and repaying the
bounty of nature by beauty that bespeaks perpetual gratitude--merry as
May, rich as June, shady as July, lustrous as August, and serene as
September, for in her meet the characteristic charms of every season,
all delightfully mingled by the happy genius of the place commissioned
to pervade the whole from heaven, most lovely yet most majestic, we
breathed the music of thy name, and start in this sterner solitude at
the sweet syllabling of Windermere, Windermere! Translucent thy waters
as diamond without a flaw. Unstained from source to sea are all the
streams soft issuing from their silver springs among those beautiful
mountains. Pure are they all as dew--and purer look the white clouds
within their breast. These are indeed the Fortunate Groves! Happy is
every tree. Blest the "Golden Oak," which seems to shine in lustre of
his own, unborrowed from the sun. Fairer far the flower-tangled grass of
those wood-encircled pastures than any meads of Asphodel. Thou need'st
no isles on thy heavenly bosom, for in the sweet confusion of thy shores
are seen the images of many isles, fragments that one might dream had
been gently loosened from the land, and had floated away into the lake
till they had lost themselves in the fairy wilderness. But though thou
need'st them not, yet hast thou, O Windermere! thine own steadfast and
enduring isles--her called the Beautiful--and islets not far apart that
seem born of her; for