Robert Burns

Verses on the Destruction of the Woods near Drumlanrig

As on the banks o’ wandering Nith,
  Ae smiling simmer-morn I stray’d,
And traced its bonnie howes and haughs,
  Where linties sang and lambkins play’d,
I sat me down upon a craig,
  And drank my fill o’ fancy’s dream,
When, from the eddying deep below,
  Uprose the genius of the stream.

Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow,
  And troubled, like his wintry wave,
And deep, as soughs the boding wind
  Amang his eaves, the sigh he gave-
‘And came ye here, my son,’ he cried,
  ‘To wander in my birken shade?
To muse some favourite Scottish theme,
  Or sing some favourite Scottish maid?

‘There was a time, it’s nae lang syne,
  Ye might hae seen me in my pride,
When a’ my banks sae bravely saw
  Their woody pictures in my tide;
When hanging beech and spreading elm
  Shaded my stream sae clear and cool,
And stately oaks their twisted arms
  Threw broad and dark across the pool;

‘When glinting, through the trees, appear’d
  The wee white cot aboon the mill.
And peacefu’ rose ite ingle reek,
  That slowly curling clamb the hill.
But now the cot is bare and cauld,
  Its branchy shelter’s lost and gane,
And scarce a stinted birk is left
  To shiver in the blast its lane.’

‘Alas!’ quoth I, ‘what ruefu’ chance
  Has twined ye o’ your stately trees?
Has laid your rocky bosom bare?
  Has stripp’d the cleeding o’ your braes?
Was it the bitter eastern blast,
  That scatters blight in early spring?
Or was’t the wil’fire scorch’d their boughs,
  Or canker-worm wi’ secret sting?’

‘Nae eastlin blast,’ the sprite replied;
  ‘It blew na here sae fierce and fell,
And on my dry and balesome banks
  Nae canker-worms get leave to dwell:
Man! cruel man!’ the genius sigh’d
  As through the cliffs he sank him down-
‘The worm that gnaw’d my bonnie trees,
  That reptile wears a ducal crown.’