The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #44539   Message #656463
Posted By: Jim Dixon
23-Feb-02 - 09:01 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: Gloomy Winter's Now Awa'
Subject: Lyr Add: GLOOMY WINTER'S NOW AWA' (Robt Tannahill)
Copied from "English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14." At Bartleby.com

GLOOMY WINTER'S NOW AWA'
(Robert Tannahill (1774–1810) )

Gloomy winter's now awa',
Saft the westlan' breezes blaw,
'Mang the birks o' Stanley-shaw
The mavis sings fu' cheerie, O!
Sweet the crawflower's early bell
Decks Gleniffer's dewy dell,
Blooming like thy bonnie sel',
My young, my artless dearie, O!

Come, my lassie, let us stray
O'er Glenkilloch's sunny brae,
Blithely spend the gowden day
'Midst joys that never weary, O!
Towering o'er the Newton wuds,
Laverocks fan the snaw-white cluds,
Siller saughs, wi' downy buds,
Adorn the banks sae briery, O!

Round the sylvan fairy nooks
Feath'ry breckans fringe the rocks,
'Neath the brae the burnie jouks,
And ilka thing is cheerie, O!
Trees may bud, and birds may sing,
Flowers may bloom, and verdure spring,
Joy to me they canna bring,
Unless wi' thee, my dearie, O!

[Laverocks=larks, siller saughs=silver willows, breckans=brakes, jouks=dodges, ilka=each.]

A slightly different version has already been posted in an old thread here. That version, copied from the Tannahill Weavers' site, differs mainly in spelling and in dividing the poem into 2 stanzas of 12 lines, instead of 3 stanzas of 8 lines.