The Hermitage of Braid - a poem

I always like a bit of a poetry-challenge ...

... I put a snap up the other day of 'The Hermitage of Braid' and Blipper KF mentioned that it would make a good title for a poem?

Well --- I couldn't immediately find anything, but after a bit of searching through my collection, I realised that Robert Fergusson (who is actually quite a famous Scottish poet) had penned some lines whilst visiting 'The Hermitage of Braid' in 1773, just a year before his death.

Fergusson, who wrote in English and Scots, lived right here in Edinburgh at the height of the Scottish Enlightenment. And although he died at the tragically early age of 24 (in 1774), he left behind an important body of work. His poetry is widely regarded as having influenced the work of his younger contemporary, Robert Burns - who I also blipped about just a few days ago!

I don't have an actual volume of Fergusson's poetry in my collection, but the pictured 1943 autobiography of Hugh MacDiarmid (which is quite a literary polemic!) eventually led me to the following Fergusson poem:


'VERSES, WRITTEN AT THE HERMITAGE OF BRAID.'

Would you relish a rural retreat,
Or the pleasure the groves can inspire,
The city's allurements forget,
To this spot of enchantment retire.

Where a valley and crystalline brook,
Whose current glides sweetly along,
Give nature a fanciful look,
The beautiful woodlands among.

Behold the umbrageous trees
A covert of verdure have spread,
Where shepherds may loll at their ease,
And pipe to the musical shade.

For, lo ! through each opening is heard,
In concert with waters below,
The voice of a musical bird,
Whose numbers melodiously flow.

The bushes and arbours so green,
The tendrils of spray interwove,
With foliage shelter the scene,
And form a retirement for love.

Here Venus transported may rove
From pleasure to pleasure unseen,
Nor wish for the Cyprian grove
Her youthful Adonis to screen.

Oft let me contemplative dwell
On a scene where such beauties appear ;
I could live in a cot or a cell,
And never think solitude near.

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Robert Fergusson (1750 – 1774)

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