Classic Poem

How graceful on the hills thou sit'st,
Dear Edina, the blest,
As calm and proudly as a queen
Upon her couch of rest;
And beauteous as a maiden fair
Within a sunny bower,
'Mong crystal brooks and woodlands green,
And many a fragrant flower.

Thy guardian lion by thy side
Looks down upon the Forth,
And lovingly he watcheth thee,
Fair Empress of the North.
A foeman's hand with touch unkind
Will never dare, I trow,
To pluck one single leaflet from
The thistle on thy brow.

I love to see thee, Edina,
When, in the summer time,
Thy hills and parks so beautiful
Are in their gayest prime.
Thou hast no darkening city smoke,
No deafening city din,
But humming bees and warbling birds
Are in thy gardens green.

How massive are thy palaces,
And lofty are thy towers!
Yet trees and summer greenery
Make them like fairy bowers.
When leaf and blade are twinkling in
The sunlit morning dew,
How fresh and balmy is thy breath,
Thy sky how bright and blue!

And, e'en though frowning winter comes
With tempests and with snows,
She cannot rob thee of the bliss
That in thy bosom glows,
When gaily at the social board,
Or 'round the cheerful hearth,
Friend meets with friend, to drink unscant
The purest joys on earth.

I in the moonlight love to stand
Alone upon thy bridge,
And watch the twinkling lights along
Thine old historic ridge;
And, as they star-like glimmer on
The hoary Castle's crest,
In the deep hush I seem to hear
The throbbings of thy breast.

Between the Old Town and the New
Thy railway line seems cast—
Type of the progress that divides
Thy present from thy past.
And as the busy severing vale
Is by thy bridges spanned,
So may thy rich and poor be joined
In sympathetic band.

God guard thee, Edina the fair!
In love to thee I cling;
Where'er I roam, my soul still turns
To thee on eager wing.
I yearn to see thy face again,
And hear thy Sabbath bells,
That seem to welcome weary souls
To Elim's blessed wells.

Though I have wandered far away
To many a foreign clime,
I've met with naught in any land
So lofty and sublime
As the deep quiet and holy rest
Of thy dear Sabbath days,
When, soaring from earth's mists, we rise
To bask in Heaven's bright rays.