Dick Gaughan “Now Westlin Winds,”
From: “Handful of earth,” 1981
“Now westlin winds and slaught’ring guns
Bring Autumn’s pleasant weather;
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Amang the blooming heather:
Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain
Delights the weary farmer;
And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night
To muse upon my charmer
The partridge 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 hazеl bush o’erhangs the thrush
The spreading thorn the linnet
Thus ev’ry 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 murd’ring cry
The flutt’ring, gory pinion!
But, Peggy dear, the ev’ning’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 ev’ry happy creature
We’ll gently walk, and sweetly talk
Till the silent moon shine clearly;
I’ll grasp thy waist, and, fondly prest
Swear how I love thee dearly:
Not vernal show’rs to budding flow’rs
Not Autumn to the farmer
So dear can be as thou to me
My fair, my lovely charmer!
”
It can be a challenge to pickup each word due to Dick’s thick Scottish brogue, but that adds a bit of mystery. His album, Handful of Earth, where this tune is taken from was voted album of the decade by Folk Roots magazine in both the critic’s and reader’s polls.
-Alan West-