Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Collection of ancient and modern Scottish ballads, tales, and songs > Volume 2

341
By oppression's woes and pains !
By your sons in servile chains ;
We will drain our dearest veins.
But they shall be—shall be free !
Lay the proud usurpers low !
Tyrants fall in every foe ;
Liberty's in every blow !
Forward ! let us do, or die !
THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.
[Written by the sister of Sir Gilbert Elliot, about the year 1 755.
— BuRNs's Works, vol. i. p. 282. It laments in elegant and
tender strains the effects of the fatal battle of Flodden, fought
on the 9th September, 1513, in which James IV., most of his
nobility, and the greater part of his army, composed of the
flower of the nation, were slain. The tune is one of the most
beautiful, and considered as the most ancient, of ovir Scottish
melodies.]
I've heard them lilting, at the ewe milking.
Lasses a' lilting, before dawn of day ;
But now they are moaning, on ilka green loaning;
The flowers of the forest are a' wede awae.
At bughts, in the morning, nae blithe lads are scorning;
Lasses are lonely, and dowie, and wae ;
Nae daffing, nae gabbing, but sighing and sabbing ;
Ilk ane lifts her leglin, and hies her av/ae.
In har'st, at the shearing, nae youths now are jearing;
Bandsters are runkled, and lyart or gray ;
At fair, or at preaching, nae M'ooing, nae fleeching ;
The flowers of the forest are a' wede awae.