oral
Parish! the Paradise in which our spirit dwelt beneath the glorious
dawning of life--can it be, beloved world of boyhood, that thou art
indeed beautiful as of old? Though round and round thy boundaries in
half an hour could fly the flapping dove--though the martens, wheeling
to and fro that ivied and wall-flowered ruin of a Castle, central in its
own domain, seem in their more distant flight to glance their crescent
wings over a vale rejoicing apart in another kirk-spire, yet how rich in
streams, and rivulets, and rills, each with its own peculiar murmur--art
Thou with thy bold bleak exposure, sloping upwards in ever lustrous
undulations to the portals of the East! How endless the interchange of
woods and meadows, glens, dells, and broomy nooks, without number, among
thy banks and braes! And then of human dwellings--how rises the smoke,
ever and anon, into the sky, all neighbouring on each other, so that the
cock-crow is heard from homestead to homestead; while as you wander
onwards, each roof still rises unexpectedly--and as solitary, as if it
had been far remote. Fairest of Scotland's thousand parishes--neither
Highland, nor Lowland--but undulating--let us again use the descriptive
word--like the sea in sunset after a day of storms--yes, Heaven's
blessing be upon thee! Thou art indeed beautiful as of old!

The same heavens! More blue than any colour that tinges the flowers of
earth--like the violet veins of a virgin's bosom. The stillness of those
lofty clouds makes them seem whiter than the snow. Return, O lark! to
thy grassy nest, in the furrow of the green brairded corn, for thy
brooding mate can no longer hear thee soaring in the sky. Methinks there
is little or no change on these coppice-woods, with their full budding
branches all impatient for the spring. Yet twice have axe and bill-hook
levelled them with the mossy stones, since among the broomy and briery
knolls we sought the grey linnet's nest, or wondered to spy, among the
rustling leaves, the robin-redbreast, seemingly forgetful of his winter
benefactor, man. Surely there were trees here in former times, that now
are gone--tall, far-spreading single trees, in whose shade used to lie
the ruminating cattle, with the small herd-girl asleep. Gone are they,
and dimly remembered as the uncertain shadows of dreams; yet not more
forgotten than some living beings with whom our infancy and boyhood held
converse--whose voices, laughter, eyes, forehead--hands so of