Metrical tales, and other poems; - Electric Scotland

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PEELUDE.
THE NORSEMAN.
Most of the inhabitants of the northern shores of Caithness are of
Norse origin, but in no part of Scotland are the natives more strongly
attached to their birthplace. Point St. John, from which our Norseman
is supposed to have taken his survey, overlooks the Pentland Firth,
Orkney Islands, and Skerry Lighthouses, from the Caithness side.
N Point St.
John the Norseman stands alone,
With Phcebus' setting glories round him thrown,
And as he turns his gaze on either hand,
He sees tlie great, the terrible, the grand:
The dreaded Pentland's rough and rapid flow,
The wide Atlantic lit with evening's glow,
High Dunnet Head, the Pentland's towering lights.
The Orkney Islands, mountains, capes, and bights,
A lengthened stretch of bay-indented coast,
Whose cliffs arise, a bold defiant host,
From which the shattered might of ocean reels,
Like Phalanx broken on a thousand steels.
These meet the pensive Norseman's gaze by turns,
Warm in his breast the love of country burns
He weaves his patriot thoughts in rugged verse,
Which thus to winds and waves he did rehearse :
"My Northern Clime!
my Northern Clime!
Though cold thy breezes be ;
Though round my home the fleecy foam
Is wafted from the sea