[4] Of the “Flowers of the Forest,” two other versions appear in the Collections.  That version beginning, “I’ve heard the lilting at our yow-milking,” is the composition of Miss Jane Elliot, the daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, Lord Justice-Clerk, who died in 1766.  She composed the song about the middle of the century, in imitation of an old version to the same tune.  The other version, which is the most popular of the three, with the opening line, “I ’ve seen the smiling of fortune beguiling,” was also the composition of a lady, Miss Alison Rutherford; by marriage, Mrs Cockburn, wife of Mr Patrick Cockburn, advocate.  Mrs Cockburn was a person of highly superior accomplishments.  She associated with her learned contemporaries, by whom she was much esteemed, and died at Edinburgh in 1794, at an advanced age.  “The forest” mentioned in the song comprehended the county of Selkirk, with portions of Peeblesshire and Lanarkshire.  This was a hunting-forest of the Scottish kings.

THE SEASON COMES WHEN FIRST WE MET.

    The season comes when first we met,
      But you return no more;
    Why cannot I the days forget,
      Which time can ne’er restore? 
    O! days too sweet, too bright to last,
    Are you, indeed, for ever past?

    The fleeting shadows of delight,
      In memory I trace;
    In fancy stop their rapid flight,
      And all the past replace;
    But, ah!  I wake to endless woes,
    And tears the fading visions close!

OH, TUNEFUL VOICE!  I STILL DEPLORE.

    Oh, tuneful voice!  I still deplore
    Those accents which, though heard no more,
      Still vibrate in my heart;
    In echo’s cave I long to dwell,
    And still would hear the sad farewell,
      When we were doom’d to part.

    Bright eyes!  O that the task were mine,
    To guard the liquid fires that shine,
      And round your orbits play—­
    To watch them with a vestal’s care,
    And feed with smiles a light so fair,
      That it may ne’er decay!

DEAR TO MY HEART AS LIFE’S WARM STREAM.[5]

    Dear to my heart as life’s warm stream,
      Which animates this mortal clay;
    For thee I court the waking dream,
      And deck with smiles the future day;
    And thus beguile the present pain,
    With hopes that we shall meet again!

    Yet will it be as when the past
      Twined every joy, and care, and thought,
    And o’er our minds one mantle cast,
      Of kind affections finely wrought. 
    Ah, no! the groundless hope were vain,
    For so we ne’er can meet again!

    May he who claims thy tender heart,
      Deserve its love as I have done! 
    For, kind and gentle as thou art,
      If so beloved, thou ’rt fairly won. 
    Bright may the sacred torch remain,
    And cheer thee till we meet again!