Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Scottish songs > Volume 2

417
I'm fleyed to crack the holy band,
Sae lawty says, I should na hae him.*
THE BIRKS OF INVERMAY.f
DAVID MALLET.
Tune — The Birks of Invcrmay.
The smiling mora, the breathing spring,
Invite the tunefu' birds to sing ;
And, while they warble from the spray,
Love melts the universal lay.
Let us, Amanda, timely wise,
Like them, improve the hour that flies ;
And in soft raptures waste the day,
Among the birks of Invermay.
For soon the winter of the year,
And age, life's winter, will appear ;
At this thy living bloom will fade,
As that will strip the verdant shade.
Our taste of pleasure then is o'er,
The feather'd songsters are no more ;
And when they drop, and we decay.
Adieu the birks of Invermay !
* From the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1724.
t Invermay is a small woody glen, watered by the rivulet May, which
there joins the river Earn. It is about five miles above the bridge of Earn,
and nearly nine from Perth. The seat of Mr Belsches, the proprietor of
this poetical region, and who takes from it his territorial designation,
stands at the bottom of the glen. Both sides of the little vale are complete-
ly wooded, chiefly with birches ; and it is altogether, in point of natural
loveliness, a scene worthy of the attention of the amatory muse. The course
of the May is so sunk among rocks, that it cannot be seen, but it can easily
be traced in its progress by another sense. The peculiar sound which it
makes in rushing through one particular part of its narrow, rugged, and
tortuous channel, has occasioned the descriptive appellation of the Humble-
Bumble to be attached to that quarter of the vale. Invermay may be at
once and correctly described as the fairest possible little miniature specimen
of cascade scenery.
The song appeared in the 4th volume of the Tea-Table Miscellany.