The Book of Scottish Song/Dowie in the hint o' hairst

by Hew Ainslie

Dowie in the hint o' hairst.

[Written by Hugh Ainslie, a native of the parish of Dailly, Ayrshire, and for some time a copying clerk in the Register House, Edinburgh. Mr. Ainslie is now, we believe, resident in the United States of America, to which, with his family, he emigrated in 1822. He is author of a small volme, called "A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns"]

It's dowie in the hint o' hairst,
At the wa'-gang o' the swallow,
When the wind grows cauld, and the burns grow bauld,
And the wuds are hingin' yellow;
But oh, its dowier far to see
The wa'-gang o' her the heart gangs wi',
The dead-set o' a shinin' ee,
That darkens the wearie warld on thee.

There was mickle love atween us twa—
Oh, twa could ne'er be fonder;
And the thing on yerd was never made
That could ha'e gart us sunder.
But the way o' Heav'n's abune a' ken—
And we maun bear what it likes to sen'—
It's comfort, though, to wearie men,
That the warst o' this warld's waes maun en'.

There's mony things that come and gae—
Just kent and just forgotten—
And the flowers that busk a bonnie brae,
Gin anither year lie rotten.
But the last look o' that lovely e'e,
And the dying grip she ga'e to me,
They're settled like eternitie—
Oh, Mary! that I were wi' thee.

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