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Thou Gloomy December

[ Roud V4373 ; Robert Burns]

Jean Redpath sang Gloomy December in 1980 on her Philo/Greentrax album The Songs of Robert Burns Volume 6. Serge and Esther Hovey noted:

“I am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow, who has wit and beauty more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian banditti. My Highland durk I have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I cannot command; in case of spring-tide paroxysms.”
— from Robert Burns to Capt. Richard Brown of Irvine, 30 December 1787

This romantic affair with Nancy (Mrs. Agnes Craig M’Lehose) was documented by years of correspondence between Clarinda (Nancy) and Sylvander (Burns). On 27 December 1791, Burns sent this song to his “ever dearest Nancy”. The song, Burns wrote, was “To a charming plaintive Scots air”.

Rod Paterson sang Gloomy December on his 1996 Greentrax album of Robert Burns songs, Songs From the Bottom Drawer.

Corrina Hewat sang Thou Gloomy December in 1998 on the Linn anthology The Complete Songs of Robert Burns Volume 4.

Kirsten Easdale sang Thou Gloomy December on Bring in the Spirit’s 2024 anthology Bring in the Spirit. She noted:

Thou Gloomy December penned in 1791 marked the end of Burns’s ‘affair’ with Agnes ‘Nancy’ M’Lehose (1759-1841) or as Burns called her ‘Clarinda’. Nancy was married on 1 July 1776, in this former church of St Andrew’s in the Square, Glasgow.

Lyrics

Kirsten Easdale sings Thou Gloomy December

Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December!
Ance mair I hail thee wi’ sorrow and care;
Sad was the parting thou makes me remember—
Parting wi’ Nancy, oh, ne’er to meet mair!
Fond lovers’ parting is sweet, painful pleasure,
Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour;
But the dire feeling, O farewell for ever!
Is anguish unmingled, and agony pure!

Wild as the winter now tearing the forest,
Till the last leaf o’ the summer is flown;
Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom.
Till my last hope and last comfort is gone.
Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December,
Still shall I hail thee wi’ sorrow and care;
For sad was the parting thou makes me remember,
Parting wi’ Nancy, oh, ne’er to meet mair.