The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #154641   Message #3629548
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
01-Jun-14 - 01:08 PM
Thread Name: Origins: The Flowers of the Forest (Jane Elliot)
Subject: ADD: The Flowers of the Forest (Jean Elliot)
The names seem interchangeable, no definitive answer.

THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST Rutherford
Alison Rutherford, b. 1712

I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling,
I've tasted her flavours, and felt her decay:
Sweet is her blessing, and kind her caressing,
But soon it is fled, it is fled far away.

I've seen the forest adorn'd of the foremost,
With flowers of the fairest, both pleasant and gay;
Full sweet was their blooming, their scent the air perfuming,
But now are they withered, and a' wede awae.

I've seen the morning with gold the hills adorning,
And the red storm roaring, before the parting day:
I've seen Tweed's silver streams, glittering in the sunny beams,
Turn drumly and dark, as they rolled on their way.

O fickle Fortune! why this cruel sporting?
Why thus perplex us poor sons of the day.
Thy frowns cannot fear me, thy smiles cannot cheer me,
Since the flowers of the forest are a' wede awae.

Poem in print in 1765, but earlier.

R. Borland, 1890, Yarrow, It's Poets and Poetry. Thomas Fraser, Dalbeatie. (Reprints available; also on line.)