Now mirk December's dowie face
Glours our the rigs wi' sour grimace,
While, thro' his minimum of space,
The bleer-ey'd sun
Wi' blinkin light and stealing pace,
His race doth run.

From naked groves nae birdie sings,
To shepherd's pipe nae hillock rings,
The breeze nae od'rous flavour brings
From Borean cave,
And dwyning nature droops her wings,
Wi' visage grave.

Mankind but scanty pleasure glean
Frae snawy hill or barren plain,
Whan Winter, 'midst his nipping train,
Wi' frozen spear,
Sends drift owr a' his bleak domain,
And guides the weir.

Auld Reikie! thou'rt the canty hole,
A bield for mony caldrife soul,
Wha snugly at thine ingle loll,
Baith warm and couth;
While round they gar the bicker roll
To weet their mouth.

Although it is said Robert Burns and the painter Alexander Nasmyth frequently walked in the Pentlands, we can’t find a specific reference to these hills by our national bard. Clearly he was too busy in the taverns of Edinburgh .

It is to Sir Walter Scott we turn, who derived inspiration from Carnethy Hill describing,

“I think I never saw anything more beautiful then the ridge of Carnethy against a clear frosty sky,
with its peaks and varied slopes.
The hills glowed like purple amethyst;
the sky glowed topaz and vermillion colours.
I never saw a finer screen than Pentland,
considering that it is neither rocky or elevated.”

No literary visit to the Pentlands would be complete without mention of Robert Louis Stevenson. The hills loom large at the beginning and end of his literary life.
Residing in his summer home in Swanston, the sights, sounds and character of the Pentlands seemed to resonate within Stevenson and abide with him throughout our his extensive travels:

Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying,
Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,
Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how!

Gray recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,
Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the homes of the silent vanished races,
And winds, austere and pure:

Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! and to hear again the call;
Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying,
And hear no more at all.

From To SR Crockett

Useful links:

BBC Writing Scotland - Robert Louis Stevenson

National Library of Scotland - A Child's Garden by R L Stevenson


For more information about the life and works of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson as well as other Scottish writers visit the Writers Museum in Lady Stairs Close, Edinburgh.


The poet Edwin Muir was another Pentland visitor. A memorial bench dedicated to him rests in Swanston village.

Will H Ogilvie, a Borders poet from Kelso who emigrated to Australia, wrote "In Pentland Wine”:

Up here with the wind in our faces,
And the brown heath under our feet,
We look through the shimmering spaces
Over tower and steeple and street
To the lion splendidly sleeping,
To the tall Crags silent and grey,
To the Castle its grim guard keeping,
And the shining shield of the Bay.

Behind us the mists of the valley
Lie low on the moorland’s breast,
With the bonnie banks of Bonaly
In the grey of the winter dressed.
The west wind, wanting, is chiding
Glencorse with the scourge of its whips,
And the wild ducks over it riding
Are tossed like storm-tossed ships.

Up here with the clean winds blowing,
I look to you, City of mine,
I fill me a goblet o’erflowing
And pledge you in Pentland wine!
With a full heart thrilled by your story,
While the hills stand round you, like kings,
I drink to your lasting glory
In the wine that the hill-wind brings!

A couple of other verses with Pentland connections are found in the following links

The Atholl Road

The Scottish Emigrant's Farewell