This poem was first printed in the Lennox Herald on 10 September 1881 and was “inscribed to AP Coubrough Esq, Blanefield Printworks”. McAuslane was clearly a friend of the Coubroughs, who owned the Printworks. It may be intended to voice the thoughts of Anthony Park Coubrough as the poet himself does not appear to have been brought up in Strathblane. Though McAuslane worked as a journalist and later ran a charity for “incurables” in Glasgow, he was the son of a calico printer. AP Coubrough died in 1883.
What feelings come o'er me, what thoughts of the past. As I reach the sequestered dear valley at last . And, long years departed , revisit again The scenes of my boyhood , the braes of Strathblane ! How sweet to my eyes are those evergreen hills ! Each object remembered , my inmost heart thrills; Dungoyne and Dunfoyne , with the wide Campsie range, Whate'er else is altered, on these seems no change. The Spout of Ballagan still gleams in the sun; The Blane's winding waters still merrily run; The church on the hillside , the works on the plain With my worthy old master - I see them again! The past times recalled , in contemplative mood I visit the spot where the old school-house stood, And there , by the banks of the Netherton Burn , Muse sadly on days that will never return. While pensiveness deepens , dissolving in tears, As I stand by the home of those bright sunny years , And think of the loved ones , so trusted and true, Whom the darkness of death has now shut from my view. But blest be the prospects religion imparts, Those friends are not lost to our sorrowing hearts; For , like yonder broad hills , when the mist veil is riven, We shall see them again in the dawn-light of Heaven. W. T. McAUSLANE