Air—" Gilderoy." 1809.
COMPANION of my youthful sports,
From love and pride of courts
A victim to the pride of courts,
Thy early death I mourn.
Unshrouded on a foreign shore,
Thou'rt mould'ring in the clay,
While here thy weeping friends deplore
Corunna's fatal day.
How glows the youthful warrior's mind
With thoughts of laurels won,
But ruthless Ruin lurks behind,
“And marks him for her own.” [2]
How soon the meteor ray is shed,
“That lures him to his doom,” [3]
And dark Oblivion veils his head
In everlasting gloom !
Note by Ramsay.—“written on the death of a friend who fell at the Battle of Corunna.”
This song of lamentation first appeared in No. 10 of John Millar's Paisley Repository, and bore the title “Lament.” See first Note to No. 16.—Ed.
[1] “Corunna's fatal day” is a memorable event in British history. The Battle of Corunna, in Spain, between the French and British, was fought on Monday, 16th January, 1809. The British were victorious. The distinguished commander, General Sir John Moore, a native of Glasgow, and the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Napier, of Blackston, near Paisley (aged 35), of the 92nd Highlanders, both fell that day, and were buried at Corunna. Odes were written to the memories of each of them, and Tannahill did not forget a companion of his youth, who fell on the same bloody field.—Ed.
“Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for his own.”
[2] 118th and 119th lines of Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard—Ed.
[3] “‘Forbear, my son,’ the Hermit cries,
To tempt the dangerous gloom ;
For yonder faithful phantom flies,
To lure thee to thy doom."
3rd Verse of Goldsmith's “Hermit.”
We are of opinion that many of the quotations made by Tannahill have been done from memory, and not from notes; and hence some of them are not altogether correctly quoted.—Ed.
[Semple 98]