O, were I on Parnassus hill,
     Or had o’ Helicon my fill,
     That I might catch poetic skill,
     To sing how dear I love thee! 
     But Nith maun be my Muse’s well,
     My Muse maun be thy bonie sel’,
     On Corsincon I’ll glowr and spell,
     And write how dear I love thee.

     Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay! 
     For a’ the lee-lang simmer’s day
     I couldna sing, I couldna say,
     How much, how dear, I love thee,
     I see thee dancing o’er the green,
     Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean,
     Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een—­
     By Heaven and Earth I love thee!

     By night, by day, a-field, at hame,
     The thoughts o’ thee my breast inflame: 
     And aye I muse and sing thy name—­
     I only live to love thee. 
     Tho’ I were doom’d to wander on,
     Beyond the sea, beyond the sun,
     Till my last weary sand was run;
     Till then—­and then I love thee!

A Mother’s Lament

     For the Death of Her Son.

     Fate gave the word, the arrow sped,
     And pierc’d my darling’s heart;
     And with him all the joys are fled
     Life can to me impart.

     By cruel hands the sapling drops,
     In dust dishonour’d laid;
     So fell the pride of all my hopes,
     My age’s future shade.

     The mother-linnet in the brake
     Bewails her ravish’d young;
     So I, for my lost darling’s sake,
     Lament the live-day long.

     Death, oft I’ve feared thy fatal blow. 
     Now, fond, I bare my breast;
     O, do thou kindly lay me low
     With him I love, at rest!

The Fall Of The Leaf

     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 liv’d—­but how much liv’d 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 gain’d! 
     And downward, how weaken’d, how darken’d, how pain’d! 
     Life is not worth having with all it can give—­
     For something beyond it poor man sure must live.

I Reign In Jeanie’s Bosom

     Louis, what reck I by thee,
     Or Geordie on his ocean? 
     Dyvor, beggar louns to me,
     I reign in Jeanie’s bosom!