| |
| FROM Stirling Castle we had seen | |
| The mazy Forth unravell’d, | |
| Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay, | |
| And with the Tweed had travell’d; | |
| And when we came to Clovenford, | 5 |
| Then said my ‘winsome Marrow,’ | |
| ‘Whate’er betide, we’ll turn aside, | |
| And see the Braes of Yarrow.’ | |
| |
| ‘Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town, | |
| Who have been buying, selling, | 10 |
| Go back to Yarrow, ’tis their own, | |
| Each maiden to her dwelling! | |
| On Yarrow’s banks let herons feed, | |
| Hares couch, and rabbits burrow; | |
| But we will downward with the Tweed, | 15 |
| Nor turn aside to Yarrow. | |
| |
| ‘There’s Galla Water, Leader Haughs, | |
| Both lying right before us; | |
| And Dryburgh, where with chiming Tweed | |
| The lintwhites sing in chorus; | 20 |
| There’s pleasant Teviotdale, a land | |
| Made blythe with plough and harrow: | |
| Why throw away a needful day | |
| To go in search of Yarrow? | |
| |
| ‘What’s Yarrow but a river bare | 25 |
| That glides the dark hills under? | |
| There are a thousand such elsewhere | |
| As worthy of your wonder.’ | |
| —Strange words they seem’d of slight and scorn; | |
| My true-love sigh’d for sorrow, | 30 |
| And look’d me in the face, to think | |
| I thus could speak of Yarrow! | |
| |
| ‘O green,’ said I, ‘are Yarrow’s holms. | |
| And sweet is Yarrow flowing! | |
| Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, | 35 |
| But we will leave it growing. | |
| O’er hilly path and open strath | |
| We’ll wander Scotland thorough; | |
| But, though so near, we will not turn | |
| Into the dale of Yarrow. | 40 |
| |
| ‘Let beeves and home-bred kine partake | |
| The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; | |
| The swan on still Saint Mary’s Lake | |
| Float double, swan and shadow! | |
| We will not see them; will not go | 45 |
| To-day, nor yet to-morrow; | |
| Enough if in our hearts we know | |
| There’s such a place as Yarrow. | |
| |
| ‘Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown; | |
| It must, or we shall rue it: | 50 |
| We have a vision of our own, | |
| Ah! why should we undo it? | |
| The treasured dreams of times long past, | |
| We’ll keep them, winsome Marrow! | |
| For when we’re there, although ’tis fair, | 55 |
| ’Twill be another Yarrow! | |
| |
| ‘If care with freezing years should come | |
| And wandering seem but folly,— | |
| Should we be loth to stir from home, | |
| And yet be melancholy; | 60 |
| Should life be dull, and spirits low, | |
| ’Twill soothe us in our sorrow | |
| That earth has something yet to show, | |
| The bonny holms of Yarrow!’ | |
| |
