Argyll

Anonymous

Why blame you, Argyll, for its rain or its mist,

When the “Goddess of Beauty” each acre has kissed.

Why frown, when its pathways are not of the best?

When all else around your heart be at rest,

Where else – may I ask – is there beauty so grand.

Where mountain, moor, river, each loch and each strand

Are formed and tinted in the truest of art,

By the hand of Dame Nature from the depths of her heart.

Her mountains so lofty, so rugged and stern

Her moors clad in heather, moss bracken and fern

Her rivers, so wild, that o’er rocky beds leap

Their tribute to pay to lochs lovely and deep.

You may wander through countries – north, south, east and west

You may search all their beauty spots seeking the gest,

But in your heart, all the while, you will know

There is none that can equal Argyll.

To this “Land of all Lands” I’d advise one and all, to pay a long visit

(Not an afternoon call) and now as advice I am giving away –

I may as well tell you the right place to stay

The town of Dunoon on the shores of the Clyde

Is the best of all places in which to reside.<fn>”Argyll,” poem of unknown origin, 1934. Copy on paper given to Juli Anderson by mother in 1996.</fn>