The word "beautiful" turns up in the title and again in four of the ten stanzas: the glens are "beautiful to sight", the river is "beautiful", the woods are "beautiful to view", and by stanza eight the scenery is simply "the beautiful scenery". McGonagall's poem works less like a meditation on nature than like a sales pitch. Its central idea is that Aberfoyle is so lovely, so rich in stories and so well provided for that nobody should miss it, least of all people worn out by work.
The poem is oddly short of pictures. Apart from a few touches, such as the Ochil hills "blue in hue", the "heathery mountains" and the "oak and birch woods", the landscape is described with stock praise: "sparkling and bright", "romantic ranges of rock", "magnificent background far and wide". Eighth stanza arrives at a candid admission: "no words can describe the beautiful scenery." Then comes the sensible conclusion that "Aberfoyle must be visited in order to see". The poet cannot paint the view, so he sends you to look for yourself, which is exactly what a good advertisement does.
Where the scenery stays vague, the stories are given names. The Lady of the Lake is said to have "frequented" the woods and taken a boat out on the lakes, as though a character from a legend were an early tourist. Rob Roy and his Helen spend "many happy days" chasing deer, which turns a legendary figure into a contented holidaymaker. Stirling Castle appears with a quick reminder that the English once "beseiged very hard". The place becomes more attractive because it is crowded with history and legend, and the poem uses these names as bait.
The most surprising stanzas are the practical ones. The trout can be had "for the taking out", as if the lochs were a shop. Then, in the middle of all this romance, come the Glasgow Water Works, carrying Loch Katrine's water "in copious streams clear" to "the Great Metropolis of the West", whose people "should think themselves blest". It is an odd moment, with pipes and civic pride sitting beside deer and lakes, but it shows a mind that finds the useful as admirable as the picturesque. The hotel stanza is similar. The clachan has shrunk until "little remains but a hotel", yet the poem quickly turns the loss into a selling point with its clean bedding and "good cooks there to cook the food".
The form is built for this plain, announcing voice. There are ten quatrains of rhymed couplets, and the rhymes drive the poem. "Rob Roy" is paired with "joy", "river" with "never", "West" with "blest", and "eastward" with "hard". Sometimes the content seems to follow the rhyme: the trout are "for the taking out" because "trout" needs a partner. The rhythm is loose and galloping, with lines of very different lengths. "Which convey water of Loch Katrine in copious streams clear" has far more syllables than "And gaze on the magnificent scenery" has room for, and it only holds together if you read it quickly, almost as a chant. The word order bends to fit as well, as in "forget it you'll never" and "many a sail in her boat she did take". Phrases like "I'll be bound" are there mostly to complete a line.
The last stanza changes the tone. The speaker turns to "ye hard-working sons and daughters of daily toil" and sends them to "traverse its heathery mountains" when "Nature's green in the spring of the year". It is the poem's warmest moment. The scenery is no longer something for tourists to tick off but a gift for people who rarely get a break. Even here the place-name does the work, since "toil" is found to rhyme with "Aberfoyle", but the sentiment feels sincere.
That sincerity is what makes the poem worth reading. A modern reader may smile at the repetition, the stretched lines and the water-works stanza. Yet the poem is a clear example of enthusiasm outrunning technique: the speaker so wants his reader to see Aberfoyle that he piles up praise, legend, fishing and even bed linen. It records a view of nature as something to be shared, visited and enjoyed by everyone, including those who work for their living.