Blue-eyed Anne.
[Written by Angus Fletcher, among the ruins of Dunoon Castle, which command a distant view of Montstuart in the Isle of Bute. This song appeared first in a Greenock Newspaper, January 1806, but is here given with the author's latest corrections. It was written to the air of "Miss Forbes' farewell to Banff," and has also been set to music of its own by an Edinburgh publisher, who calls the tune "The Flower of Dunoon."]
Nine times bleak winter's cranreuch snell
Despoiled o' bloom the daisied lea;
And nine times has the primrose pale
Spread round the dells of Coir-in-t-shee,
Since, where Montstuart's dusky grove
Waves o'er yon foaming distant sea,
I blushing own'd my youthful love,
And Blue-eyed Anne reproved na me.
Wha then wad think our joys could fade?
Love's dearest pleasures a' we knew;
And not a cloud was seen to shade
The blissful scenes young fancy drew
But scowling tempests soon o'ercast
Our azure skies and summer sea—
I've borne misfortune's rudest blast,
Yet Blue-eyed Anne still smiles on me.
Now safe retired, no more I'll stray
Ambition's faithless path alang,
But calmly spend the careless day
Dunoon's green winding vales amang:
And aft I'll climb this hoary pile,
When spring revives each flower and tree,
To view yon sweet sequester'd isle,
Whare Blue-eyed Anne first smiled on me.