| |
| SLOW spreads the gloom my soul desires, | |
| The sun from India’s shore retires; | |
| To Evan banks with temperate ray, | |
| Home of my youth, it leads the day. | |
| O banks to me forever dear! | 5 |
| O stream whose murmurs still I hear! | |
| All, all my hopes of bliss reside | |
| Where Evan mingles with the Clyde. | |
| |
| And she, in simple beauty drest, | |
| Whose image lives within my breast; | 10 |
| Who trembling heard my parting sigh, | |
| And long pursued me with her eye! | |
| Does she, with heart unchanged as mine, | |
| Oft in thy vocal bowers recline? | |
| Or where yon grot o’erhangs the tide, | 15 |
| Muse while the Evan seeks the Clyde. | |
| |
| Ye lofty banks that Evan bound! | |
| Ye lavish woods that wave around, | |
| And o’er the stream your shadows throw, | |
| Which sweetly winds so far below; | 20 |
| What secret charm to memory brings | |
| All that on Evan’s border springs? | |
| Sweet banks! ye bloom by Mary’s side; | |
| Blest stream! she views thee haste to Clyde. | |
| |
| Can all the wealth of India’s coast | 25 |
| Atone for years in absence lost; | |
| Return, ye moments of delight, | |
| With richer treasure bless my sight! | |
| Swift from this desert let me part, | |
| And fly to meet a kindred heart! | 30 |
| Nor more may aught my steps divide | |
| From that dear stream which flows to Clyde. | |
| |
