Tenant of the mountain's brow!
Why thus thy youthful haunts forsake?
With shaggy garb of snowy hue,
Thou seek'st a shade by wood and brake;
There, thoughtless, crop'st the flow'ry swaird,
With warrior front, and hermit beard.

Thou mind'st no more the rude grey cairn,
Where awful Silence slumb'ring lies,
Nor dark caves, crown'd with heath and fern,
That echoed back thy mother's cries.
The scene how wild! yet, oh, how grand!
Who robb'd thee of thy birthright?—Man.

For thee no female trims her hair,
Nor offspring round thee gambols play;
No rival comes, with threatening air,
Thy hidden valour to display:
Thy life's unvaried, dull and tame;
Thus bound and shackled stains thy name.

So Liberty, the mountain maid,
On Scotia's cliffs once tun'd her strains,
Till taught with gems her hair to braid,
To sing and toy with south'ren swains;
Her free-born spirit soon was broke—
She bows 'neath Luxury's golden yoke.