The laverocks, now, and lintwhites sing,
The rocks around with echoes ring;
The mavis and the blackbird vie,
In tuneful strains, to glad the day
The woods now wear their summer suits;
To mirth all nature now invites:
Let us be blythsome, then, and gay,
Among the birks of Invermay.
Behold the hills and vales around,
With lowing herds and flocks abound;
The wanton kids and frisking lambs
Gambol and dance around their dams.
The busy bees, with humming noise,
And all the reptile kind rejoice:
Let us, like them, then, sing and play
About the birks of Invermay.
Hark, how the waters, as they fall,
Loudly my love to gladness call;
The wanton waves sport in the beams,
And fishes play throughout the streams:
The circling sun does now advance,
And all the planets round him dance:
Let us as jovial be as they,
Among the birks of Invermay.
Ah, the poor Shepherd.
[This fine lyric is given in the first vol. of Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany without any signature, but it is the production of the accomplished poet, William Hamilton of Bangour, (born 1704; died 1754.) It was written to the tune of "Galashiels," and will be found with the music in the second volume of Johnson's Museum.]
Ah, the poor shepherd's mournful fate,
When doom'd to love and doom'd to languish,
To bear the scornful fair one's hate,
Nor dare disclose his anguish!
Yet eager looks and dying sighs
My secret soul discover,
While rapture, trembling through mine eyes,
Reveals how much I love her.
The tender glance, the reddening cheek,
O'erspread with rising blushes,
A thousand various ways they speak
A thousand various wishes.
For, oh! that form so heavenly fair,
Those languid eyes so sweetly smiling,
That artless blush and modest air
So fatally beguiling;
Thy every look, and every grace,
So charm, whene'er I view thee,
Till death o'ertake me in the chase
Still will my hopes pursue thee.
Then, when my tedious hours are past,
Be this last blessing given,
Low at thy feet to breathe my last,
And die in sight of heaven.
Kath'rine Ogie.
[Of the author of this old song nothing is known, but it can be traced as far back as the days of Charles II., before whom it was sung by John Abell of the chapel-royal, a celebrated singer of the period. Single sheets of it, with the music, were published in 1680. In the "Pills to Purge Melancholy," published about twenty years later, an inaccurate reprint of it is given, and also another song to the same tune, called "Kath'rine Logie." Ramsay's version of it in the Tea Table Miscellany differs only in a few words from the original, and is the one generally adopted.]
As walking forth to view the plain,
Upon a morning early,
While May's sweet scent did cheer my brain,
From flowers which grew so rarely,
I chanc'd to meet a pretty maid,
She shin'd tho' it was foggie:
I ask'd her name: Kind sir, she said,
My name is Kath'rine Ogie.
I stood a while, and did admire,
To see a nymph so stately:
So brisk an air there did appear
In a country maid so neatly:
Such nat'ral sweetness she display'd,
Like a lily in a bogie;
Diana's self was ne'er array'd
Like this same Kath'rine Ogie.
Thou flow'r of females, beauty's queen,
Who sees thee sure must prize thee;
Though thou art drest in robes but mean,
