Tune: Druimionn dubh
First printed in the S.M.M., Vol. 2, 14th February, 1788.
Musing on the roaring ocean
Which divides my Love and me,
Wearying Heaven in warm devotion
For his weal where’er he be;
5 Hope and Fear’s alternate billow
Yielding late to Nature’s law,
Whispering spirits round my pillow,
Talk of him that’s far awa. —
Ye whom Sorrow never wounded,
10 Ye who never shed a tear,
Care-untroubled, joy-surrounded,
Gaudy Day to you is dear:
Gentle Night do thou befriend me;
Downy sleep the curtain draw;
15 Spirits kind again attend me,
Talk of him that’s far awa!
Burns records that he composed this song as a ‘compliment to a Mrs McLachlan, whose husband is an officer in the East Indies’ (See Low, no. 82, p. 257).