When the sun is high in the summer sky, And the lake is deep with clouds; When gadflies bite the prancing kine, And light the lark enshrouds— Then the butterfly, like a feather dropped From the tip of an angel’s wing, Floats wavering on to the glancing spot Where the lilies used to spring!
When the wheat is shorn and the burns run brown, And the moon shines clear at night; When wains are heaped with rustling corn, And the swallows take their flight; When the trees begin to cast their leaves, And the birds, new-feathered, sing— Then comes the bee to the glancing spot Where the lilies used to spring!
When the sky is grey and the trees are bare, And the grass is long and brown, And black moss clothes the soft damp thatch, And the rain comes weary down, And countless droplets on the pond Their widening orbits ring— Then bleak and cold is the silent spot Where the lilies used to spring!
Snow.
O weary passed each winter day, And windily howled each winter night; O miry grew each village way, And mists enfolded every height; And ever on the window pane A froward gust blew down with rain, And day by day in tawny brown The Luggie stream came heaving down:— I could have fallen asleep and dreamed Until again spring sunshine gleamed.
And what! said I, is this the mode That Winter kings it now-a-days? The Robin keeps its own abode, And pipes his independent lays. I’ve seen the day on Merkland hill, That snow has fallen with a will, Even in November! Now, alas; The whole year round we see the grass:— Ah, winter now may come and go Without a single fall of snow.
It was the latest day but one Of winter, as I questioned thus; And sooth! an angry mood was on, As at a thing most scandalous;— When lo! some hailstones on the pane With sudden tinkle rang amain, Till in an ecstasy of joy I clapp’d and shouted like a boy— Oh, rain may come and rain may go, But what can match the falling snow!
It draped the naked sycamore On Foordcroft hill, above the well; The elms of Rosebank o’er and o’er Were silvered richly as it fell. The distant Campsie peaks were lost, And farthest Criftin with his host Of gloomy pine-trees disappeared, Nor even a lonely ridge upreared.— Oh, rain may come and rain may go, But what can match the falling snow!