Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
Evan Banks
By Helen Maria Williams (c. 1762–1827)S
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!
O stream whose murmurs still I hear!
All, all my hopes of bliss reside
Where Evan mingles with the Clyde.
Whose image lives within my breast;
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,
Muse while the Evan seeks the Clyde.
Ye lavish woods that wave around,
And o’er the stream your shadows throw,
Which sweetly winds so far below;
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.
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!
Nor more may aught my steps divide
From that dear stream which flows to Clyde.