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The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd

Centenary Edition. With a Memoir of the Author, by the Rev. Thomas Thomson ... Poems and Life. With Many Illustrative Engravings [by James Hogg]

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But, oh! when the moor gat her coverlet gray;
When the gloaming had flaughted the night and the day;
When the craws had flown to the greenwood shaw,
And the kid blett over the Lammer Law;
When the dew had laid the valley asteep,
And the gowan had faul't her buds to sleep;
When naething was heard but the merlin's maen,
Oh, then, that gyre carle was never his lane.
A bonnie wee baby, sae meek and mild,
Then walk'd with him in the dowie wild;
But, oh! nae pen that ever grew
Could describe that baby's heavenly hue:
Yet all the barmings of sturt and strife,
And weary wailings of mortal life,
Would soon have been hush'd to endless peace
At ae blink of that baby's face.