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The Poems of Robert Fergusson

Edited by Matthew P. McDiarmid

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Written at the Hermitage of Braid, near Edinburgh.

Would you relish a rural retreat,
Or the pleasure the groves can inspire?
The city's allurements forget,
To this spot of enchantment retire.
Where a valley, and chrystaline brook,
Whose current glides sweetly along,
Give nature a fanciful look
The beautiful woodlands among.
Behold the umbrageous trees
A covert of verdure have spread,
Where shepherds may loll at their ease,
And pipe to the musical shade:
For lo! thro' each op'ning is heard,
In concert with waters below,
The voice of a musical bird,
Whose numbers do gracefully flow.

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The bushes and arbours so green,
With tendrils of spray interwove,
With foliage shelter the scene,
And form a retirement for love.
Here Venus transported may rove
From pleasure to pleasure unseen,
Nor wish for the Cyprian grove
Her youthful Adonis to screen.
Oft let me contemplative dwell
On a scene where such beauties appear;
I could live in a cot or a cell,
And never think solitude near.