Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Invermay

The Birks of Invermay

By David Mallet (c. 1705–1765)

THE SMILING morn, the breathing spring,

Invite the tuneful birds to sing,

And while they warble from each spray,

Love melts the universal lay.

Let us, Amanda, timely wise,

Like them improve the hour that flies,

And in soft raptures waste the day

Amang the birks of Invermay.

For soon the winter of the year,

And age, life’s winter, will appear;

At this, thy living bloom will fade,

As that will nip the vernal shade;

Our taste of pleasure then is o’er,

The feathered songsters are no more;

And when they droop, and we decay,

Adieu the birks of Invermay.

The laverock now and lintwhite sing,

The rocks around with echoes ring;

The mavis and the blackbird gay

In tuneful strains now glad the day;

The woods now wear their summer suits,

To mirth all nature now invites:

Let us be blythesome then and gay

Amang the birks of Invermay.

Behold, the hills and vales around

With lowing herds and flocks abound;

The wanton kids and frisking lambs

Gambol and dance about their dams;

The busy bees with humming noise,

And all the reptile kind rejoice:

Let us, like them, then sing and play

About the birks of Invermay.

Hark! how the waters, as they fall,

Loudly my love to gladness call;

The wanton waves sport in the beams,

And fishes play throughout the streams;

The circling sun does now advance,

And all the planets round him dance:

Let us as jovial be as they

Amang the birks of Invermay.