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viii. JACOBITE 261 |
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No. 279. Now Nature hangs her mantle green.
Tune : Mary Queen of Scots lamentScots Musical Museum, 1796, No. 404. |
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Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree, And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea : Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies ; But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.
Now laverocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing; The merle, in his noontide bow'r,
Makes woodland echoes ring ; The mavis wild wi' monie a note
Sings drowsy day to rest: In love and .freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae ; The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae : The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang ; But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison Strang.
I was the Queen o' bonie France, Where happy I hae been ;
Fu' lightly rase I in the morn, As blythe lay down at e'en :
And I'm the sov'reign of Scotland, And monie a traitor there; |
Yet here I lie in foreign bands, And never-ending care.
But as for thee, thou false woman,
My sister and my fae, Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword
That thro* thy soul shall gae ! The weeping blood in woman's breast
Was never known to thee ; Nor the balm that draps on wounds of woe
Frae woman's pitying e'e.
My son ! my son ! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine ; And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine ! God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee : And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend,
Remember him for me !
OI soon, to me, may Summer's suns
Nae mair light up the morn ! Nae mair to me the Autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn ! And, in the narrow house of death,
Let Winter round me rave ; And the next flow'rs that deck the Spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave. |
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