A final look at the last poem by John Struthers in 1830, titled “To Calder Water”. Pictured is the point where the River Calder meets the Clyde.In the background is the farm at Haughead where now the Clydeway Golf Range is. On the opposite back to the left, is now the back gardens of Daldowie Crematorium. The river is the boundary where Blantyre Parish ends and the scene today has much more woodland.
Calder ! upon thy blooming braes,
Sweet they were spent my infant days ;
And on thy bank, first caught my view,
The blushing daisie bath’d in dew.
Oft have I mark’d, with wintry rains,
Thee swoln across th’ adjoining plains,
And blest myself, with secret pride,
The world had no such flood beside.
Our childish views but seldom last !
That dream with other dreams hath past,
Yet, Calder, still thou art to me,
The loveliest stream that seeks the sea.
What though upon thy shallow shore
Commerce never ply’d an oar ?
What though no mystery shroud thy source ?
Nor rolls, afar, thy unknown course,
Through woody wilds and deserts, spread
Out boundless, lifeless, dry and dread,
Where gloomy Desolation hoar,
Had drunk for aye thy sullen roar
I would riot change thee all the while,
Not for the world-enriching Nile !
The traveller may exulting tell
Of far Missouri’s mighty swell
Of dread Niagara thundering high,
An Ocean pour’d from upper sky
Of Niger watering unknown lands,
And drunk at last by burning sands
Of Ganges, India’s hallow’d stream,
That sin can wash, as Hindoos dream
And, by the proud Iberian won,
Of the rich empire of the Sun,
Their limbs whose gentle children lave,
In Orellana’s mighty wave.