Awhile, my dear Mary, farewell,
Since fate has decreed we should part;
Thine image shall still with me dwell,
Though absent, you'll reign in my heart.
But by winding Devon's green bowers,
At eve's dewy hour as I rove,
I'll grieve for the pride of her flowers,
And the pride of her maidens, my love.
The music shall cease in the grove,
Thine absence the linnet shall mourn;
But the lark, in strains bearing love,
Soft warbling, shall greet thy return.
GEORGE WILSON.
George Wilson was born on the 20th June 1784, in the parish of Libberton, and county of Lanark. Deprived of both his parents early in life, he was brought to the house of his paternal uncle, who rented a sheep-farm in the vicinity of Peebles. At the burgh school of that place he received an ordinary education, and in his thirteenth year hired himself as a cow-herd. Passing through the various stages of rural employment at Tweedside, he resolved to adopt a trade, and in his eighteenth year became apprenticed to his maternal uncle, a cabinetmaker in Edinburgh. On fulfilling his indenture, he accepted employment as a journeyman cabinetmaker; he subsequently conducted business on his own account. In 1831 he removed from Edinburgh to the village of Corstorphine, in the vicinity; where he continues to reside. He published "The Laverock," a volume of poems and songs, in 1829. The following lyrics from his pen evince no inconsiderable vigour, and seem worthy of preservation.
MILD AS THE MORNING.
Air—'Bonnie Dundee.'
Mild as the morning, a rose-bud of beauty,
Young Mary, all lovely, had come from afar,
With tear-streaming eyes, and a grief-burden'd bosom,
To view with sad horror the carnage of war.
She sought her brave brother with sighing and sorrow;
Her loud lamentations she pour'd out in vain;
The hero had fallen, with kinsmen surrounded,
And deep he lay buried 'mong heaps of the slain.