The Book of Scottish Song/The tears I shed

The tears I shed.

[This highly finished lyric was the production of Mrs. Dugald Stewart, the excellent and accomplished wife of the celebrated professor of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh. Her maiden name was Helen D'Arcy Cranstoun, and she was the daughter of the Hon. George Cranstoun, youngest son of William, fifth Lord Cranstoun. She was born in the year 1765, married in 1790, and died so recently as the 28th July, 1835. The song was first pubhshed in the fourth volume of Johnson's Museum (1792,) adapted to an air, by John Barret, an old English composer, called "Ianthe the lovely." The same air was selected by Gay for one of his songs in "The Beggar's Opera,"—"When he holds up his hands arraigned for life."—The first four lines of the last stanza were written by Burns, to suit the music, which requires double verses.]

The tears I shed must ever fall:
⁠I mourn not for an absent swain;
For thoughts may past delights recall,
⁠And parted lovers meet again.
I weep not for the silent dead:
⁠Their toils are past, their sorrows o'er;
And those they loved their steps shall tread,
⁠And death shall join to part no more.

Though boundless oceans roll between,
⁠If certain that his heart is near,
A conscious transport glads each scene,
⁠Soft is the sigh, and sweet the tear.
E'en when by death's cold hand removed,
⁠We mourn the tenant of the tomb:
To think that e'en in death he loved,
⁠Can gild the horrors of the gloom.

But bitter, bitter are the tears
⁠Of her who slighted love bewails;
No hope her dreary prospect cheers,
⁠No pleasing melancholy hails.
Hers are the pangs of wounded pride,
⁠Of blasted hope, of withered joy;
The flatt'ring veil is rent aside,
⁠The flame of love burns to destroy.

In vain does memory renew
⁠The hours once tinged in transport's dye;
The sad reverse soon starts to view,
⁠And turns the past to agony.
E'en time itself despairs to cure
⁠Those pangs to ev'ry feeling due:
Ungenerous youth! thy boast how poor,
⁠To win a heart—and break it too.

No cold approach, no alter'd mien,
⁠Just what would make suspicion start;
No pause the dire extremes between,
⁠He made me blest—and broke my heart.
From hope, the wretched's anchor, torn;
⁠Neglected and neglecting all;
Friendless, forsaken, and forlorn;
⁠The tear I shed must ever fall.

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