The Book of Scottish Song/When lonely thou wander'st

by David Arnott

When lonely thou wander'st.

[From "The "Witches of Keil's Glen, a Dramatic Fragment, with other Poems, by David Arnott," printed at Cupar in Fifeshire in 1825. Mr. Arnott is now a clergyman in Dundee.]

When lonely thou wanderest along by the wild wood,
As twilight steals over the earth like a dream;
An' nature, all lovely as when in her childhood,
On thy heart and thine eye in beauty may beam.
When over the world the grey shades are returning,
And the star of the evening all silent is burning,
With splendour celestial the heavens adorning,
And thy soul is enraptured by ecstacy's gleam.

Then think of thy lover who sigheth in sadness,
When viewing that star as he wanders alone,
Which once to his soul was the emblem of gladness,
As thy faithful bosom he rested upon.
Oh! think of the woes on his heart that are preying,
And think of that love that can know no decaying,
And, oh! may that breast never dream of betraying
The youth it has blest in the days that are gone.

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