Sae will we yet (Stirling)/The Flowers o' the Forest

by Alicia Cockburn

For other versions of this work, see The Flowers of the Forest (Cockburn).

THE FLOWERS O’ THE FOREST.

I’ve seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling,
I’ve felt all its favours, and found its decay;
Sweet was its blessing, kind its caressing,
But now ’tis fled,——fled far away.

I’ve seen the forest adorned the foremost,
With flow’rs of the fairest, most pleasant and gay,
Sae bonny was their blooming, their scents the air perfuming;
But now they are wither’d and wedded away.

I’ve seen the morning with gold the hills adorning,
And loud tempest storming before the midday;
I’ve seen Tweed’s silver streams, shining in the sunny beams,
Grow drumlie and dark as they roll’d on their way.

O fickle fortune! why this cruel sporting,
O why still perplex us poor sons of a a day.
Nae mair your smiles can cheer me, nae mair your frowns can fear me,
For the flow’rs of the forest are wither’d away.

 

FINIS.