Coronach
Walter Scott · 1805
Public domain
From The Golden Treasury, selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. Walter Scott. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The fount reappearing
From the raindrops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!
The hand of the reaper
Take the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing
Waft the leaves that are serest,
But our flower was in flushing
When blighting was nearest.
Fleet foot on the correi,
Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and for ever!