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Tune: MacPherson’s Farewell

First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.

The Wintry West extends his blast,

And hail and rain does blaw;

Or, the stormy North sends driving forth

The blinding sleet and snaw: snow

5 While, tumbling brown, the Burn comes down,

And roars frae bank to brae: from

While bird and beast in covert, rest,

And pass the heartless day.

‘The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,’1

10 The joyless winter-day,

Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May:

The Tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,

My griefs it seems to join;

15 The leafless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine!

Thou POW’R SUPREME, whose mighty Scheme

These woes of mine fulfill,

Here, firm I rest, they must be best,

20 Because they are Thy Will!

Then all I want (Oh, do Thou grant

This one request of mine!):

Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,

Assist me to resign.

This song is ‘The eldest of my printed pieces’ Burns told Dr Moore (Letter 125). In the FCB the poet records the influence upon him of Nature during the most inclement of winter weather: ‘There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more – I don’t know if I should call it pleasure, but something which exalts me, something which enraptures me – than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood or high plantation, in a cloudy winter day, and to hear a stormy wind howling among the trees & raving o’er the plain. – It is my best season for devotion …’ The imagery of winter desolation cast in a melancholy vein runs through the poetry of Burns as a motif for individual loss, or resignation to a person’s fate.

1 Dr Young, R.B.