In har’st, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering, Bandsters are lyart, and runkled, and gray; At fair, or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching; The Flowers o’ the Forest are a’ wede awae.
At e’en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming ‘Bout stacks, wi’ the lasses at bogles to play; But ilk maid sits dreary, lamenting her dearie— The Flowers o’ the Forest are weded awae.
Dool and wae for the order, sent our lads to the Border! The English, for ance, by guile wan the day; The Flowers o’ the Forest, that fought aye the foremost, The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.
We’ll hear nae mair lilting, at the ewe-milking; Women and bairns are heartless and wae: Sighing and moaning, on ilka green loaning— The Flowers o’ the Forest are a’ wede awae.
[ ULALUME]
I The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispèd and sere,— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir,— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
II Here once, through an alley Titanic Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul,— Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. These were days when my heart was volcanic As the scoriac rivers that roll,— As the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole,— That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole.
III Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere,— Our memories were treacherous and sere; For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year (Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber— (Though once we had journeyed down here), Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.