The "Lovely Lass of Inverkip" is a poem by the "Radical Poet", Alexander Rodger (1784-1846).
Alexander Rodger was born in East Calder, Midlothian and worked as a weaver and music teacher in Bridgeton, Glasgow. In 1819 he was editor of the radical newspaper The Spirit of the Union and was imprisoned because of his writings. A collection of his poems in the Scots dialect was published in 1821. Here's "The Lovely Lass of Inverkip".
O'er Cowal hills the sinking sun
Was bidding Clutha's vale guid-day,
And from his gorgeous golden throne,
Was shedding evening's mildest ray,
As round the Cloch I bent my way,
With buoyant heart and bounding skip,
To meet my lass, at gloaming grey,
Amang the shaws of Inverkip.
We met- and what an eve of bliss!
A richer, sweeter, neve flew,
With mutual vow, with melting kiss,
And ardent throb of bosoms true:-
The bees, ;mid flowers of freshest hue,
Would cease their honeyed sweets to sip,
If they her soft sweet lips but knew -
The lovely lass of Inverkip.
Her ebon locks, her hazel eye,
Her placid brow, so fair and meek,
Her artless smile, her balmy sigh,
Her bonnie, blushing, modest cheek -
All these a stainless mind bespeak,
As pure as is the lily's tip;
Then, O, may sorrow's breath so bleak
Ne'er blight my Bud of Inverkip.
Rodger worked at Barrowfield Printworks and then became a writer on the Glasgow Chronicle and later the Reformer's Gazette. In 1832 his work appeared in Whistle Binkie, a collection of poems by various authors. He was known as the "Radical Poet".
Read more about Inverkip here.
