And while I spin my flaxen thread, And sing my simple lay, The village seems asleep or dead, Now Lubin is away. THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.[4] Adieu! ye streams that smoothly glide, Through mazy windings o'er the plain; I 'll in some lonely cave reside, And ever mourn my faithful swain. Flower of the forest was my love, Soft as the sighing summer's gale, Gentle and constant as the dove, Blooming as roses in the vale. Alas! by Tweed my love did stray, For me he search'd the banks around; But, ah! the sad and fatal day, My love, the pride of swains, was drown'd. Now droops the willow o'er the stream; Pale stalks his ghost in yonder grove; Dire fancy paints him in my dream; Awake, I mourn my hopeless love. [4] Of the "Flowers of the Forest," two other versions appear in the Collections. That version beginning, "I've heard the lilting at our yow-milking," is the composition of Miss Jane Elliot, the daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, Lord Justice-Clerk, who died in 1766. She composed the song about the middle of the century, in imitation of an old version to the same tune. The other version, which is the most popular of the three, with the opening line, "I 've seen the smiling of fortune beguiling," was also the composition of a lady, Miss Alison Rutherford; by marriage, Mrs Cockburn, wife of Mr Patrick Cockburn, advocate. Mrs Cockburn was a person of highly superior accomplishments. She associated with her learned contemporaries, by whom she was much esteemed, and died at Edinburgh in 1794, at an advanced age. "The forest" mentioned in the song comprehended the county of Selkirk, with portions of Peeblesshire and Lanarkshire. This was a hunting-forest of the Scottish kings. THE SEASON COMES WHEN FIRST WE MET. The season comes when first we met, But you return no more; Why cannot I the days forget, Which time can ne'er restore? O! days too sweet, too bright to last, Are you, indeed, for ever past? The fleeting shadows of delight, In memory I trace; In fancy stop their rapid flight, And all the past replace; But, ah! I wake to endless woes, And tears the fading visions close! OH, TUNEFUL VOICE! I STILL DEPLORE. Oh, tuneful voice! I still deplore Those accents which, though heard no more, Still vibrate in my heart; In echo's cave I long to dwell, And still would hear the sad farewell, When we were doom'd to part. Bright eyes! O that the task were mine, To guard the liquid fires that shine, And round your orbits play-- To watch them with a vestal's care, And feed with smiles a light so fair, That it may ne'er decay! DEAR TO MY HEART AS LIFE'S WARM STREAM.[5]