Tree and River, Glen Aora

It has been another appallingly wet day - so much so that even leafleting in Oban had to be curtailed, as it was (for a period in the afternoon) impossible to get the leaflets through the doors without them turning sodden , so unremittingly heavy was the rain.

When I drove back home via Glen Aora, which comes down into Inveraray, the river was in spate. Here, and at Loch Awe and even in Glendaruel, there were lots of trees standing in the fast flowing water as every bank was burst.

Glen Aora was the birthplace of the journalist and writer, Neil Munro - author of the Para Handy Stories amongst other fine works. He wrote about the place with great affection as in this poem which reflects his Highland roots.

Nettles

O sad for me Glen Aora,
Where I have friends no more,
For lowly lie the rafters,
And the lintels of the door.
The friends are all departed,
The hearth-stone's black and cold,
And sturdy grows the nettle
On the place beloved of old.
O! black might be that ruin
Where my fathers dwelt so long,
And nothing hide the shame of it,
The ugliness and wrong;
The cabar and the corner-stone
Might bleach in wind and rains,
But for the gentle nettle
That took such a courtier's pains.

Here's one who has no quarrel
With the nettle thick and tall,
That hides the cheerless hearthstone
And screens the humble wall,
That clusters on the footpath
Where the children used to play,
And guards a household's sepulchre
From all who come the way.

There's deer upon the mountain,
There's sheep along the glen,
The forests hum with feather,
But where are now the men?
Here's but my mother's garden
Where soft the footsteps fall,
My folk are quite forgotten,
But the nettle's over all.