Alison Cockburn's Lyrics
In 1765 the wit and socialite Alison Cockburn published her lyrics to the Flowers of the Forest beginning "I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling" said to have been written before her marriage in 1731 . It concerns a financial crisis that had ruined the fortunes of a number of the Selkirk Lairds. Later biographers, however, think it probable that it was written on the departure to London of a certain John Aikman, with whom Alison appears to have had an early attachment.
The first verse runs
-
- I've seen the smiling
- Of fortune beguiling,
- I've tasted her pleasures,
- And felt her decay;
- Sweet is her blessing,
- And kind her caressing,
- But now they are fled
- And fled far away.
Read more about this topic: Flowers Of The Forest
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