Now Westlin Winds Robert Burns Song Scotland

Tour Scotland travel video of the Now Westlin Winds song by Robert Burns set to a slide show of some of my photographs of Autumn in Scotland. This song dates back to 1775 when Burns was still at school. The object of his affections, Peggy, is Margaret Thomson, whom Burns described as, a charming Filette who lived next door to the school overset my Trigonometry, and set me off in a tangent from the sphere of my studies.

Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring Autumn's pleasant weather;
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Amang the blooming heather:
Now waving grain, wide over the plain,
Delights the weary farmer;
And the moon shines bright, as I rove by night,
To muse upon my charmer.

The paitrick loves the fruitful fells,
The plover loves the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells,
The soaring hern the fountains:
Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves,
The path of man to shun it;
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush,
The spreading thorn the linnet.

Thus every kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine,
Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away, the cruel sway!
Tyrannic man's dominion;
The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry,
The fluttering, gory pinion!

But, Peggy dear, the evening's clear,
Thick flies the skimming swallow,
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading, green and yellow:
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms of Nature;
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,
And ilka happy creature.

We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk,
While the silent moon shine clearly;
I'll grasp thy waist, and, fondly prest,
Swear how I love thee dearly:
Not vernal showers to budding flowers,
Not Autumn to the farmer,
So dear can be as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely charmer !

Robert Burns was born, on the 25 January 1759, two miles south of Ayr, Ayrshire, in Alloway, the eldest of the seven children of William Burnes, a self educated tenant farmer from Dunnottar in the Mearns, and Agnes Broun, the daughter of a Kirkoswald tenant farmer. The only occasion that Robert Burns visited Perth, Perthshire, was towards the end of his 22 day tour of the Highlands during August and September, 1787.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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