Another wonderful old poem by John Struthers, describing our local area in the 1830’s. It tells of a memory and longing to be back to see mother natures’s accomplishments all over our immediate area.Pictured is Letterick, just north of Crossbasket, as features in this poem.

How gayly rich the mantle wide.
She drops across thee, sweet Burnside ;
And round Crossbasket’s ancient towers,
Flings all her sweets and all her flowers !

Lov’d Letterick, on thy sunny braes,
How glow the lengthening April days ;
And fair Greenha’, and meek Millhew,
How rich ye drink the soft May dew ;
How gorgeous her retir’d abode,
In the deep dells of Calderwood.

Or, sunward spread, plain nature’s pride,
The birkclad dingles of Woodside ;
Or the green glens so quiet and still,
Or Mauchline-hole or Newhouse Mill ;
Of ‘neath the cliffs, abrupt and torn,
Of howl et haunted Rotten burn ;
Despair might even be sooth’d the while,
Would he but catch her witching smile

Beneath the groves of Brankumha’,
Or thy broad limes, old Cantislaw ;
Or Laurieston, forgot and gone,
Fair Nethermains, and Cadger-Loan,
Whose site the passing stranger sees
Still rnark’d out by the broad ash trees,
Or leafy elms outspreading wide,
In sad, but still in stately pride.

How fraught with life the gentle purl is
Of her sweet breath around the Whirlies ;
Or the green ivy- mantled walls,
Of thee, my natal cot, Forefauls ;
Or o’er the crofts, her early pride,
Of Buchandyke, and Tannochside,
But chief my infant mind respired,
And still my aching heart is fir’d.