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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Wearie’s Well

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

Edinburgh

Wearie’s Well

By William Motherwell (1797–1835)

IN a saft simmer gloamin’,

In yon dowie dell,

It was there we twa first met,

By Wearie’s cauld well.

We sat on the broom bank,

And looked in the burn,

But sidelang we looked on

Ilk ither in turn.

The corncraik was chirming

His sad eerie cry,

And the wee stars were dreaming

Their path through the sky;

The burn babbled freely

Its love to ilk flower,

But we heard and we saw naught

In that blessed hour.

We heard and we saw naught,

Above or around;

We felt that our luve lived,

And loathed idle sound.

I gazed on your sweet face

Till tears filled my e’e,

And they drapt on your wee loof,—

A warld’s wealth to me.

Now the winter snaw ’s fa’ing

On bare holm and lea,

And the cauld wind is strippin’

Ilk leaf aff the tree.

But the snaw fa’s not faster,

Nor leaf disna part

Sae sune frae the bough, as

Faith fades in your heart.

You ’ve waled out anither

Your bridegroom to be;

But can his heart luve sae

As mine luvit thee?

Ye ’ll get biggings and mailins,

And mony braw claes;

But they a’ winna buy back

The peace o’ past days.

Farewell, and forever,

My first luve and last;

May thy joys be to come,—

Mine live in the past.

In sorrow and sadness

This hour fa’s on me;

But light, as thy luve, may

It fleet over thee!