The Book of Scottish Song/The gloomy night

The gloomy night.

[Written by Burns to the tune of "Roslin Castle." It was afterwards set to music by his friend Allan Masterton, and called "The bonnie banks of Ayr." "I had been for some time," says the poet, "skulking from covert to covert, under all the terrors of a jail, as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock; and I had composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia—'The gloomy night is gathering fast,'—when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my ambition." Professor Walker completes the sketch from materials supplied by the Poet: "Burns had left Dr. Lawrie's family after a visit, which he expected to be the last, and on his way home had to cross a wide stretch of solitary moor. His mind was strongly affected by parting for ever with a scene where he had tasted so much elegant and social pleasure, and depressed by the contrasted gloom of his prospects: the aspect of nature harmonised with his feelings; it was a lowering and heavy evening in the end of autumn. The wind was up and whistled through the rushes and long spear-grass which bent before it. The clouds were driving across the sky; and cold pelting showers at intervals added discomfort of body and cheerlessness of mind. Under these circumstances, and in this frame, Burns composed this poem."]

The gloomy night is gathering fast,
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast,
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain,
I see it driving o'er the plain.
The hunter now has left the moor,
The scatter'd coveys meet secure,
While here I wander, prest with care,
Along the lonely banks of Ayr.

The autumn mourns her ripening corn
By early winter's ravage torn;
Across her placid azure sky
She sees the scowling tempest fly:
Chill rins my blood to hear it rave,
I think upon the stormy wave,
Where many a danger I must dare,
Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr.

'Tis not the surging billows' roar,
'Tis not that fatal, deadly shore;
Though death in every shape appear,
The wretched have no more to fear
But round my heart the ties are bound.
That heart transpierced with many a wound;
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear,
To leave the bonnie banks of Ayr.

Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales,
Her heathy moors and winding vales;
The scene where wretched fancy roves,
Pursuing past, unhappy loves!
Farewell, my friends, farewell, my foes.
My peace with these, my love with those;
The bursting tears my heart declare;
Farewell the bonnie banks of Ayr.

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