Above the Crags that fade and gloom

Starts the bare knee of Arthur’s Seat;

Ridged high against the evening bloom,

The Old Town rises, street on street;

With lamps bejewelled, straight ahead,

Like rampired walls the houses lean,

All spired and domed and turreted,

Sheer to the valley’s darkling green;

Ranged in mysterious disarray,

The Castle, menacing and austere,

Looms through the lingering last of day;

And in the silver dusk you hear,

Reverberated from crag and scar,

Bold bugles blowing points of war.