In a cleft remote where white mists float Around Blue Mountain's peak I rise unseen beneath a screen Of fog clouds dank and bleak Who wrote this?

The opening lines of "Song of a Blue Mountain Stream" by Reginald Myrie Murray, in about 1920 and recounts the progress of the stream towards the sea as it passes through "fern-arched DELLs" where mountain birds like the blue dove and the solitaire call. The Blue Mountains are those of Jamaica, which rise behind Kingston, the capital. It was collected in Rambles (Kingston, Jamaica: The Gleaner Company, 1956). Murray, a Jamaican and Jamaica's first Rhodes Scholar (1905), later became headmaster in succession of two of Kingston's leading boys' schools. He retired to live in the mountains, which he had always loved. Murray wrote poetry only occasionally, but it was always well-crafted in a traditional late nineteenth-century style. It was influenced by Shelley, John Masefield, Alfred Noyes and Austin Dobson. "Song of a Blue Mountain Stream" was included in an elementary school reader, and was widely known to several generations of Jamaican school children. It is easy to learn by heart and a great piece for group recitation.