CCVIII.
Reading edition
BEHOLD THE HOUR.
Tune—“Oran-gaoil.”
[“The following song I have composed for the Highland air that you tell me in your last you have resolved to give a place to in your book. I have this moment finished the song, so you have it glowing from the mint.” These are the words of Burns to Thomson: he might have added that the song was written on the meditated voyage of Clarinda to the West Indies, to join her husband.]
I.
Behold the hour, the boat arrive; Thou goest, thou darling of my heart! Sever’d from thee can I survive? But fate has will’d, and we must part. I’ll often greet this surging swell, Yon distant isle will often hail: “E’en here I took the last farewell; There, latest mark’d her vanish’d sail.”
II.
Along the solitary shore While flitting sea-fowl round me cry, Across the rolling, dashing roar, I’ll westward turn my wistful eye: Happy, thou Indian grove, I’ll say, Where now my Nancy’s path may be! While thro’ thy sweets she loves to stray, O tell me, does she muse on me?