---
title: "Behold the Hour, the Boat Arrive"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1793"
location: "Dumfries"
source: "Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/poems/behold-the-hour-the-boat-arrive-2/"
---

# Behold the Hour, the Boat Arrive

## Poem
Behold the hour, the boat arrive;  
Thou goest, the darling of my heart;  
Sever’d from thee, can I survive,  
But Fate has will’d and we must part.  
I’ll often greet the surging swell,  
Yon distant Isle will often hail:  
“E’en here I took the last farewell;  
There, latest mark’d her vanish’d sail.”  
Along the solitary shore,  
While flitting sea-fowl round me cry,  
Across the rolling, dashing roar,  
I’ll westward turn my wistful eye:  
“Happy thou Indian grove,” I’ll say,  
“Where now my Nancy’s path may be!  
While thro’ thy sweets she loves to stray,  
O tell me, does she muse on me!”

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt)  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/poems/behold-the-hour-the-boat-arrive-2/