Scottish Quotations about Rivers

On Leven's banks, while free to rove,
And tune the rural pipe to love,
I envied not the happiest swain
That ever trod the Arcadian plain.
Pure stream! in whose transparent wave
My youthful limbs I wont to lave;
No torrents stain thy limpid source,
No rocks impede thy dimpling course,
That sweetly warbles o'er its bed,
With white, round, polish'd pebbles spread.
- Tobias George Smollett, Ode to Leven Water

I’ve angled far and angled wide,
On Fannich drear, by Luichart’s side,
Across dark Conan’s current;
Have haunted Beauly’s silver stream,
Where glimmering thro’ the forest Dream
Hangs its eternal torrent;

Among the rocks of wild Maree,
O’er whose blue billow ever free
The daring eagles hover,
And where, at Glomach’s ruffian steep,
The dark stream holds its angered leap,
Many a fathom over;

By Lochy sad, and Laggan lake,
Where Spey uncoils his glittering snake
Among the hills of thunder;
And I have swept my fatal fly
Where swarthy Findhorn hurries by
The olden forest under;
But dearer than all these to me
Is sylvan Tweed; each tower and tree
That in its vale rejoices!
Dearer the streamlets one and all,
That blend with its AEolian brawl
Their own enamouring voices!
T. T. Stoddart.

Sweet Teviot! on thy silvery tide
The glaring bale-fires blaze no more;
No longer steel-clad warriors ride
Along thy wild and willow'd shore.
- Sir Walter Scott

Three crests against the saffron sky,
Beyond the purple plain,
The kind remembered melody
Of Tweed once more again.

Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood
Fleets through the dusky land;
Where Scott, come home to die, has stood,
My feet returning stand.

A mist of memory broods and floats,
The Border waters flow,
The air is full of ballad notes
Borne out of long ago.

Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill,
Fair and too fair you be;
You tell me that the voice is still
That should have welcomed me.
Andrew Lang.

How sweet to move at summer's eve
By Clyde's meandering stream,
When Sol in joy is seen to leave
The earth with crimson beam;
When islands that wandered far
Above his sea couch lie,
And here and there some gem-like star
Re-opes its sparkling eye.
- Andrew Park, The Banks of Clyde

Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those.
The bursting tears my heart declare;
Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr.
Robert Burns - The Banks of Ayr

And yet how fair the rural scene!
For thou, 0 Clyde, hast ever been
Beneficent as strong;
Pleased in refreshing dews to steep
The little trembling flowers that peep
Thy shelving rocks among.
Wordsworth.

Roaming in the gloaming,
By the bonny banks of Clyde.
Harry Lauder, (Hugh MacLennon) (1870 - 1950)
Scottish music-hall artist. Song

We had a day’s journey before us along the banks of the
Tweed, a name which has been sweet to my ears almost as far back as I can remember anything. After the first mile or two our road was seldom far from tile river, which
flowed in gentleness, though perhaps never silent; the hills on either side high and sometimes stony, but excellent pasturage for sheep. In some parts the vale was wholly of this pastoral character, in others we saw extensive tracts of corn ground, even spreading along whole hill-sides, and without visible fences, which is dreary in a flat country; but there is no dreariness on the banks of the Tweed, the hills, whether smooth or stony, uncultivated or covered with ripe corn, had the same pensive softness. Near the corn tracts were large farmhouses, with many corn-stacks; the stacks and house and outhouses together, I recollect, in one or two places upon the hills, at a little distance, seemed almost as large as a small village or hamlet. It was a clear autumnal day, without wind, and being Sunday the business of the harvest was suspended; and all that we saw and felt and heard combined to excite one sensation of pensive and still pleasure.
Dorothy Wordsworth

How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales,
Where spreading hawthorns gaily bloom,
How sweetly wind thy sloping dales,
Where lambkins wanton thro’ the broom!
Robert Burns.

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