I DREAMT I LAY. I dreamt I lay where flowers were springing Gaily in the sunny beam; Listening to the wild birds singing, By a falling, crystal stream: Straight the sky grew black and daring; Such was my life's deceitful morning, But long e'er noon, loud tempests storming, Though fickle fortune has deceived me, She promised fair, and performed but ill, Of many a joy and hope bereaved me, I bear a heart shall support me still. Burns. MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS. My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer, Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the highlands wherever I go. * Troubled. Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, The birth-place of valour, the country of worth; Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow; Farewell to the straths and green valleys below; Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods ; Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here: My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer; Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go ! Burns. THE LAZY MIST. The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill, Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill ; How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear, As Autumn to Winter resigns the pale year! The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown, And all the gay foppery of Summer is flown: Apart let me wander, apart let me muse, How quick time is flying, how keen fate pursues; How long I have lived, but how much lived in vain : How little of life's scanty span may remain : What aspects, old Time, in his progress has worn; What ties, cruel fate in my bosom has torn. How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gained! And downward, how weakened, how darkened, how pained! This life's not worth having with all it can give, For something beyond it poor man sure must live. Burns. MUSING ON THE ROARING OCEAN. Musing on the roaring ocean Which divides my love and me; Hope and fears alternate billow Ye whom sorrow never wounded, Gentle night, do thou befriend me ; Spirits kind, again attend me, Burns. TO MARY IN HEAVEN. Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray, My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? That sacred hour can I forget? Can I forget the hallowed grove, Where by the winding Ayr we met, To live one day of parting love? Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transports past; Thy image at our last embrace; Ah! little thought we 'twas our last! Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore, Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, Where is thy blissful place of rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hears't thou the groans that rend his breast! Burns. |