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.