Broadside ballad entitled 'The Poet's Return'

Transcription

THE                                          

Poet's Return,

BY JOHN M A C M I L L A N,            

PROFESSOR OF POETRY, ORATORY, AND TEACHER OF ELOCUTION.      

DEDICATED                        

TO THE GENTLEMEN, THE LAND PROPRIETORS ON THE   
BANKS OF GIRVAN WATER.                              

TUNE?" The Traveller's Return."                              

To view the scenes of Nature, I
Have travelled far and wide,
And wondrous Sights of Art to spy,
With Muses for my guide.
    With joy and grief I now return
To Girvan Water fine,
To see the place where I was born,
Brought up, and bred langsyne?

All hail ! delightful hills and dales,
       With lovely lawns and groves,
Where blithesome birds repeat their tales,
All warbling with their loves :
And hail, relations, friends, I call
On you remaining mine,
Behold how time has changed us all,
Since I was here langsyne !

Kilkerran and Kirkoswald here,
Dalquharran, Dailly dale,
Bargany, and Trochregg, appear,
       Kilochan?Piedmont vale ;?
Kilkerran, O thou place of worth !
Remember I am thine,?
Upon thy land I was brought forth,
In Glenton Farm langsyne.

    Near Dailly Bridge, a cottage there
       Did once the eye regale,
   With D. Maclure's fine children, fair,
         Like lilies of the vale :
In youthful days they went away,
Where they far distant shine,
And flourish like the flowers of May,
Fair virtue's fruits langsyne.!?

Here Catharina, fairest maid,
Shone like the morning star ;
In learning, she great powers displayed,
At school excelling far.
And sweet Rosina, fair and red,
Carnation-like, so fine,
I loved, but still my love was hid,
Through bashfulness, langsyne !

To Girvan water I'm returned,
Where every scene endears ;
And now, behold the Hill that burned
For near a hundred years !
It rent the rocks, and flamed the height,
And burned the mountain pine ;
But now it is extinguished quite,
Not like the place langsyne !

The Lady Glen, and all around
Kilkerran House I view,
Where coal, and lime, and wood abound,
More precious than Peru !
The Muse imagines this my lot,
And sings of it as mine,
This healthy, heartsome, happy spot,
Where I was born langsyne !

I here would lay me down and die,
The ground I would embrace ;
My body here entombed would lie,
In this my Native Place !
My soul would take the way that's given
To endless bliss divine,
And join the Seraphim of heaven
With poets of langsyne !

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