Tradition, be thou mute! Oblivion, throw
Thy veil, in mercy, o’er the records hung
Round strath and mountain, stamped by the ancient tongue
On rock and ruin darkening as we go,—
Spots where a word, ghost-like, survives to show
What crimes from hate, or desperate love, have sprung;
From honour misconceived, or fancied wrong,
What feuds, not quenched but fed by mutual woe:
Yet, though a wild vindictive Race, untamed
By civil arts and labour of the pen,
Could gentleness be scorned by these fierce Men,
Who, to spread wide the reverence that they claimed
For patriarchal occupations, named
Yon towering Peaks, Shepherds of Etive Glen?”