The Book of Scottish Song/The Esk

The Esk.

[Rev. John Logan.—Tune, "Tweedside."]

While frequent on Tweed and on Tay,
Their harps all the muses have strung;
Should a river, more limpid than they,
The wood-fringed Esk, flow unsung?
While Kitty and Chloe inspire
The poet with pastoral strains,
Why silent the voice of the lyre
On Mary, the pride of the plains?

Oh! nature's most beautiful works
Are often unseen and unknown;
And often in solitude lurks
A form that should shine on a throne;
In the wilderness blossoms the rose
In beauty, retir'd from the sight;
And Philomel warbles her woes
Alone to the ear of the night.

How often the beauty is hid
Amid shades that her triumphs deny
How often the hero forbid
From the path that conducts to the sky!
A Helen has pin'd in the grove,
A Homer has wanted his name,
Unseen in the circle of love,
Unknown in the temple of fame.

Yet let us walk forth to the stream
Where poets ne'er wander'd before,
Enamour'd of Mary's sweet name,
The echoes will spread to the shore;
If the voice of the muse be divine,
Thy beauties shall live in my lay,
While reflecting the forest so fine,
Sweet Esk o'er the valley shall stray.

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