IF THOU WERT BY MY SIDE, MY LOVE. If thou wert by my side, my love, I miss thee, when, by Gunga's stream, My twilight steps I guide, But most beneath the lamp's pale beam I miss thee from my side. But when at morn and eve the star I feel, though thou art distant far, Then on, then on, where duty leads! My course be onward still, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin stacher thro', To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily, His clane hearth-stane, his thriftie wife's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does all his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil. Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers: The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years, Anticipation forward points the view. The mother, wi' her needle and her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. Their master's an' their mistress's command, The younkers a' are warned to obey: And mind their labors wi' an eydent hand, And ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: "And, oh! be sure to fear the Lord alway, And mind your duty, duly, morn and night! Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, |