Lines — Written at an Inn, in That Very Retired and Romantic Part of Northumberland, the Banks of the Allan
By George Pickering
November, 1787.
Howl on ye winds, and beat ye rains,
Ye torrents roar o’er yonder linn,
And Allen swell thy rapid stream,
I careless view thee from an Inn.
The trees that late appear’d so green,
To drop their foliage now begin:
They waft a moral to mine ear,
While pensive sitting at an Inn.
See winter comes with all his train,
I hear his loud, his arctic din:
Why let him come, I fear him not,
I sit in comfort at an Inn.
When age, life’s winter, shall appear,
Then reason whispers from within;
Eternity’s our wish’d for home,
The world at best is but an Inn.