Bonny lass of Calder Braes (1806)/Invitation to a country wedding

THE COUNTRY WEDDING.

COME haste to the wedding, ye friends and ye neighbours
the lovers their bliss can no longer delay:
Forget all your sorrows, your care and your labours,
And let ev’ry heart beat with rapture to day,
Come come, one and all attend to my call,
And revel in pleasures that never can cloy;
Come see rural felicity,
Which love and innocence ever enjoy.

Let envy and pride let hate and ambition,
Still croud to, and bias the breasts of the great;
To such wretched passions we give no admission
But leave them alone to the wise ones of state
We boast of no wealth, but contentment and health,
In mirth and in friendship our moments employ,

Come, see, &c.

With reason we taste of each heart stirring pleasure;
With reason we drink of the full flowing bowl,
Are jocund and gay, but all within measure
For fatal excess but enslaves the free soul.
Come come at our bidding to this happy wedding,
No care shall obtrude here our bliss to annoy.
Come see rural felicity
Which love and innocence e er enjoy.