No More Learning

Liberty's in every blow!
Forward! let us do, or die!

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CCVIII.

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?

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CCIX.

THOU HAST LEFT ME EVER.

Tune--"_Fee him, father. _"

["I do not give these verses," says Burns to Thomson, "for any merit
they have. I composed them at the time in which 'Patie Allan's mither
died, about the back o' midnight,' and by the lee side of a bowl of
punch, which had overset every mortal in company, except the hautbois
and the muse. " To the poet's intercourse with musicians we owe some
fine songs. ]


I.

Thou hast left me ever, Jamie!
Thou hast left me ever;
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie!
Thou hast left me ever.
Aften hast thou vow'd that death
Only should us sever;
Now thou's left thy lass for ay--
I maun see thee never, Jamie,
I'll see thee never!

II.

Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie!
Thou hast me forsaken;
Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie!