| |
| WHEN summer comes, the swains on Tweed | |
| Sing their successful loves; | |
| Around the ewes and lambkins feed, | |
| And music fills the groves. | |
| |
| But my loved song is then the broom | 5 |
| So fair on Cowdenknows; | |
| For sure so sweet, so soft a bloom | |
| Elsewhere there never grows. | |
| |
| There Colin tuned his oaten reed, | |
| And won my yielding heart; | 10 |
| No shepherd e’er that played on Tweed | |
| Could play with half such art. | |
| |
| He sung of Tay, of Forth and Clyde, | |
| The hills and dales all round, | |
| Of Leader-haughs and Leader side,— | 15 |
| O, how I blessed the sound! | |
| |
| Yet more delightful is the broom | |
| So fair on Cowdenknows; | |
| For sure so fresh, so bright a bloom | |
| Elsewhere there never grows. | 20 |
| |
| Not Teviot braes, so green and gay, | |
| May with this broom compare; | |
| Not Yarrow banks in flowery May, | |
| Nor the bush aboon Traguair. | |
| |
| More pleasing far are Cowdenknows, | 25 |
| My peaceful happy home, | |
| Where I was wont to milk my ewes, | |
| At eve among the broom. | |
| |
| Ye powers that haunt the woods and plains | |
| Where Tweed with Teviot flows, | 30 |
| Convey me to the best of swains, | |
| And my loved Cowdenknows. | |
| |
