Tune: Auld Lang Syne or The Hopeless Lover
First printed in Thomson, 1799.
Now Spring has clad the grove in green, clothed
And strew’d the lea wi’ flowers: meadow
The furrow’d waving corn is seen
Rejoice in fostering showers.
5 While ilka thing in Nature join every
Their sorrows to forego,
O why thus all alone are mine
The weary steps o’ woe. —
The trout within yon wimpling burn
10 That glides, a silver dart,
And, safe beneath the shady thorn
Defies the angler’s art:
My life was ance that careless stream, once
That wanton trout was I;
15 But Love wi’ unrelenting beam
Has scorch’d my fountains dry. —
The little floweret’s peaceful lot
In yonder cliff that grows,
Which save the linnet’s flight, I wot, thrush’s, guess
20 Nae ruder visit knows, no
Was mine; till Love has o’er me past,
And blighted a’ my bloom, all
And now beneath the withering blast
My youth and joy consume. —
25 The waken’d lav’rock warbling springs lark
And climbs the early sky,
Winnowing blythe his dewy wings
In Morning’s rosy eye;
As little reckt I sorrow’s power, heeded
30 Until the flowery snare
O’ witching Love, in luckless hour,
Made me the thrall o’ care. —
O had my fate been Greenland snows,
Or Afric’s burning zone,
35 Wi’ Man and Nature leagu’d my foes,
So Peggy ne’er I’d known!
The wretch, whose doom is, hope nae mair, no more
What tongue his woes can tell;
Within whose bosom save Despair
40 Nae kinder spirits dwell. — no
Burns sent the first sketch of this song to Maria Riddell, planning to ‘interweave’ the lines in the tale of a ‘Shepherd, despairing beside a clear stream’ (Letter 677). He sent it to Thomson in August 1795 (Letter 675).