O Boat of my lover, go softly, go safely;
⁠O boat of my lover, that bears him from me!
From the homes of the clachan, from the burn singing sweetly,
⁠From the loch and the mountain, that he'll never more see.

O boat of my lover, go softly, go safely;
⁠Thou bearest my soul with thee over the tide.
I said not a word, but my heart it was breaking,
⁠For life is so short, and the ocean so wide.

O boat of my lover, go softly, go safely;
⁠Though the dear voice is silent, the kind hand is gone:
But oh, love me, my lover! and I'll live till I find thee;
⁠Till our parting is over, and our dark days are done.

Deep in the valley, afar from every beholder,
⁠In the May morning my true love came to me:
Silent we sate, her head upon my shoulder;
⁠Fondly we dreamed of the days about to be:
⁠Fondly we dreamed of the days so soon to be.

Deep in the valley, the rain falls colder and colder:
⁠Safely she sleeps beneath the churchyard tree:
Yet still I feel her head upon my shoulder,
⁠Yet still I dream of the days that could not be:
⁠Yet still I weep o'er the days that will not be.

Follow, follow, little sheep,
⁠O'er the dreary wold;
Follow, soon ye all shall sleep,
⁠Safe from wet and cold.

Linger not, oh! lagging feet!
⁠Night will soon be here;
Weary shepherd fain would greet
⁠Wife and children dear.

In his cot the fire burns bright,
⁠Supper's ready laid;
Baby waits to say good-night,
⁠Ere he goes to bed.

Little ones run in and out,
⁠Watch beside the gate;
"What can father be about,
⁠That he's home so late?"

Mother makes the ashes blaze,
⁠Baby smiles to see;
Tells them how some wanderer strays
⁠From the flock and me.

Whilst the children warmly sleep,
⁠On the dreary wold,
Father stays till all his sheep
⁠Are safely in the fold.

Linger not, oh! lagging feet!
⁠Darksome night is near;
Weary shepherd fain would greet
⁠Wife and children dear.

I knew a forest tranquil and august
⁠Down whose green deeps my steps would often stray,
When leisure met my life as dew meets dust.

Proud spacious chestnuts verged each winding way,
⁠And hickories in whose dry boughs winds were shrill,
And tremulous white-boled birches. Here, one day,

Strolling beside the scarce-held steed of will,
⁠I found a beautiful monastic grove
Of old primeval hemlocks, living still.

Round it the forest rustled, flashed and throve,
⁠But here were only silence and much gloom,
As though some sorcerer in dead days had wove,

With solemn charms and muttered words of doom,
⁠A cogent spell that said to time "Depart!"
And locked it in the oblivion of a tomb.

Thick was its floor, where scant ferns dared to start,
⁠With tawny needles, and an old spring lay
Limpid as crystal in its dusky heart.

Vaguely enough can language ever say
⁠What sombre and fantastic dreams, for me,
Held shadowy revel in my thought that day:

How stern similitudes would dimly be
⁠Of painted braves that grouped about their king;
Or how in crimson firelight I would see

Some ghostly war-dance, whose weak cries took wing
⁠Weirdly away beyond the grove's dark brink;
Or how I seemed to watch by that old spring
⁠The timid phantom deer steal up to drink!