J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular rhymes of Scotland

ORIGINAL POEMS.
E'en now, when we remember them.
Our memory they perhaps reca',
And while we fondly breathe their name.
They whisper ours, though far awa'.
SUMMER EVENING.
AN AXGLO-SCOTTISH VERSION OF A PASSAGE IN GAVIN DOUGLAS.
'TwAS ia the jolly joyous month of Jime,
When gane was near the day and supper dune,
I walkit furth to taste the evening air.
Among the fields that were replenished fair
With herbage, coni, and cattle, and fruit-trees.
Plenty of store ; while birds and busy bees
O'er emerald meadows flew baith east and west.
Their labom' done, to take their evening rest.
As up and down- 1 cast my wandering eye,
All burning red straight grew the western sky ;
The sun, descending on the waters gray,
Deep imder earth withdrew liis beams away ;
The evening star, -R-ith growing lustre bright,
Spmng up, the gay forerider of the night ;
Amid the haughs and every pleasant vale,
The recent dew began on herbs to skaU ;
The light began to dim, and mists to rise,
And here and there gi'im shades o'erspread the skies ;
The bald and leathern bat commenced her flight,
The lark descended from her airy height ;
Mists swept the hill before the lazy wind.
And night spread out her cloak with sable lined,
Swaddling the beauty of the finiitful ground
With cloth of shade, obscurity profound.
All creatm*es, wheresoe'er they liked the best.
Then went to take their pleasant nightly rest.
The fowls that lately wantoned ia the air.
The drowsy cattle in their sheltered lair.
After the heat and labour of the day,
Unstirring and imstirred ia slim[iber lay.
Each thing that roves the meadow or the wood.
Each thing that flies through air or dives in flood,
Each thing that nestles in the bosky bank,
Or loves to i-ustle through the marshes dank,
The little midges, and the happy flees.
Laborious emmets, and the busy bees,