THE Dee is running rough and wild,
Like the years, the kind-hearted years,
On the ringing rocks, the noon-tide past,
As the late summer air grows mild;
For, the Bonnie Queen who braved our fears,
Who hoped our hopes, and always smiled,
Is resting, now, at last.
Dark Loch na Garr, your roaring falls
Be now my sorrow’s muted cry!
Ye burns and streams of Conachcraig,
That weep down slopes and gray cliff walls,
Be tears for eyes from grief gone dry,
As the golden eagle’s distant calls
Moan for our hearts that break.
And you, great pines of Ballochbuie,
Tall silent sentinels of time,
Your scent perfumes the breeze’s sigh,
Your shadows hide my grief’s ennui
For her who loved this starry clime,
And knew the forest’s every tree,
And how to live, and how to die.
Balmoral! Elizabeth’s fane,
The secret garden of her youth,
Your fine crisp air last filled her breath,
O happy haunt of that long reign,
Where left our Queen her heart and troth,
Where thought of her shall never wane,
Who sealed her love by death.
Here on the Brig of Invercauld
I mix my prayers for her repose
With the loud torrents of the Dee.
Into her waters, clear and cold,
I cast the petals of a rose.
Lord, send these, with our songs of old,
To the encircling sea!
© Joseph Charles MacKenzie. All Rights Reserved.
Beautiful.
A very fine elegy. This poem expresses with historic dignity the emotions of many of us of Scottish descent. It is indeed significant that Queen Elizabeth died in Scotland. The poet brings together many characteristic images of the Scottish countryside that were familiar to her, and that call up love for the land and its great lady in all who have visited or lived there. I saw the Queen many years ago at the Braemar Gathering.
How very blest were you, Margaret Coats, to have been able to see the Queen, let alone at her favorite games in her favorite country. In my mind, a true elegy does well to reference also that which was dearest to the departed’s heart, in this case Balmoral. I have therefore evoked the geography which surrounds the great castle and which, in fact, is part of the Queen’s estate. There is a rather indirect intertextuality with the “Lochin y Gar” of George Gordon, Lord Byron, also a Scot, who contrasts that high mountain south of Balmoral with the daintiness of the English countryside. This give continuity to Britain’s literary tradition of Scotland-inspired verse, if even as a faint echo. As a true daughter of our natural home of Scotland, the Scotland that dwells ever in our hearts and souls, I hope you will also please enjoy and share the video version of “Elegy” which may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RU5dAWfKeg&list=PLUuYyfmb41mRge-X6LbxVIZYJZgkX_r-i&index=2&t=140s
What one would not give, Caryl, to hear a young Shakespearean attempt these verses which I am forced to record in my oldish, struggling voice for want of other talent to record them. Alas, the very best of today’s theatre are all but inadequate to the task of something as old fashioned as lyric verse, and my verses are particularly difficult, since my alliterations and echoes of internal rhyme only complicate things the more. This said, I sincerely hope that you will please enjoy and share the video version of my poem which you may find here with my good wishes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RU5dAWfKeg&list=PLUuYyfmb41mRge-X6LbxVIZYJZgkX_r-i&index=2&t=140s