Corfe, organist of Salisbury Cathedral, 1792 - 1804, issued two sets of "Twelve glees.... composed from ancient Scotch melodies" in the early 1790s, to satisfy two contemporary enthusiasms: that for mixed sex social music, and that for all things North-British. The current arrangement comes from the first set.

These glees were selected from a repertoire of well-known Scottish songs that had been anthologised in the previous seventy years. Corfe appears to have been particularly indebted for source material to James Johnson's "Scots Musical Museum", Edinburgh 1787, which included texts edited and improved by Robert Burns. Verses that are not underlaid were not included by Corfe, and have been imported from external sources (most especially the aforementioned "Scots Musical Museum").

Lyrics: Richard Hewitt

Twas in that season of the year
When all things gay and sweet appear;
Colin, with the morning ray,
Arose and sung his rural lay.
Of Nanny's charms the shepherd sung;
The hills and dales with Nanny rung;
While Roslin Castle heard the swain,
And echoed back the cheerful strain.

Awake, sweet muse! The breathing spring
With rapture warms; awake and sing!
Awake, and join the vocal throng
Who hail the morning with a song:
To Nanny raise the cheerful lay,
O bid her haste and come away,
In sweetest smiles herself adorn,
And add new graces to the morn.

O hark, my love, on every spray
Each feathered warbler tunes his lay;
'Tis beauty fires the ravished throng,
And love inspires the melting song.
Then let my raptured notes arise,
For beauty darts from Nanny's eyes,
And love my rising bosom warms,
And fills my soul with sweet alarms.

O come, my love. Thy Colin's lay
With rapture calls. O come away!
Come, while the mist this wreath shall twine
Around that modest brow of thine;
O hither haste, and with thee bring
That beauty blooming like the spring,
Those graces that divinely shine,
And champion this ravished breast of mine.