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This song is the composition of one

O'ER THE MOOR AMANG THE Johnson, a joiner in the neighbourhood

HEATHER.

This song is the composition of Jean Glover, a girl who was not only a but also a thief; and in one or other character has visited most of the Correction Houses in the West. She was born, I believe, in Kilmarnock. I took the song down from her singing, as she was strolling through the country with a sleight-of-hand blackguard.

of Belfast. The tune is by Oswald, altered evidently from "Jockie's Grey Breeks."

[ALL hail to thee, thou bawmy bud.

Thou charming child o' simmer, hail!
Ilk fragrant thorn and lofty wood
Does nod thy welcome to the vale.

See, on thy lately faulded form

Glad Phœbus smiles wi' cheering eye, While on thy head the dewy morn Has shed the tears o' silent joy.

The tuneful tribes frae yonder bower,
Wi' sangs of joy thy presence hail;
Then haste, thou balmy, fragrant flower,
And gi'e thy bosom to the gale.
And see the fair, industrious bee,

With airy wheel and soothing hum, Flies ceaseless round thy parent tree, While gentle breezes trembling come.

If ruthless Liza pass this way,

She'll pu' thee frae thy thorny stem; Awhile thou 'lt grace her virgin breast, But soon thou 'lt fade, my bonnie gem.

Ah! short, too short, thy rural reign,

And yield to fate, alas! thou must: Bright emblem of the virgin train,

Thou blooms, alas! to mix wi' dust.

Sae bonnie Liza hence may learn,

Wi' every youthfu' maiden gay, That beauty, like the simmer's rose, In time shall wither and decay.]

-0

THE TEARS I SHED MUST EVER

FALL.

This song of genius was composed by a Miss Cranstoun. It wanted four lines, to make all the stanzas suit the music, which I added, and are the first four of the last stanza.

[THE tears I shed must ever fall;

I weep not for an absent swain,
For time can past delights recall,
And parted lovers meet again.
I weep not for the silent dead,-

Their toils are past, their sorrows o'er,
And those they loved their steps shall tread,
And death shall join to part no more.
Though boundless oceans roll between,
If certain that his heart is near,
A conscious transport glads the scene,
Soft is the sigh and sweet the tear.
E'en when by Death's cold hand removed,
We mourn the tenant of the tomb,
To think that even in death he loved,
Can cheer the terrors of the gloom.

But bitter, bitter is the tear

Of her who slighted love bewails;
No hopes her gloomy prospect cheer,
No pleasing melancholy hails.

Hers are the pangs of wounded pride,

Of blasted hope, and withered joy; The prop she leaned on pierced her side,The flame she fed burns to destroy.

In vain does memory renew

The scenes once tinged in transport's dye. The sad reverse soon meets the view, And turns the thought to agony. Even conscious virtue cannot cure The pangs to every feeling due; Ungenerous youth, thy boast how poor, To steal a heart, and break it too !]

No cold reproach-no altered mien

Just what would make suspicion start; No pause the dire extremes between,

He made me blest-and broke my heart! [Hope from its only anchor torn,

Neglected and neglecting all, Friendless, forsaken, and forlorn, The tears I shed must ever fall.]

DAINTY DAVIE.

This song, tradition says-and the composition itself confirms it-was composed on the Rev. David Williamson's begetting the daughter of Lady Cherrytrees with child, while a party of dragoons were searching her house to apprehend him for being an adherent to the Solemn League and Covenant. The pious woman had put a lady's nightcap on him, and had laid him abed with her own daughter, and passed him to the soldiery as a lady, her daughter's bedfellow. A mutilated stanza or two are to be found in Herd's collection, but the original song consists of five or six stanzas, and were their delicacy equal to their wit and humour, they would merit a place in any collection. stanza is as follows:

Being pursued by the dragoons,
Within my bed he was laid down;

The first

And weel I wat he was worth his room, For he was my daintie Davie.

H H

Ramsay's song, "Luckie Nansy," though he calls it an old song with additions, seems to be all his own, except the chorus, which I should conjecture to be part of a song prior to the affair of Williamson.

[WHILE fops in soft Italian verse,

Ilk fair ane's een and breast rehearse, While sangs abound and sense is scarce, These lines I have indited.

But neither darts nor arrows here,

Venus nor Cupid shall appear,

And yet with these fine sounds, I swear,

The maidens are delighted.

I was aye telling you,

Luckie Nansy, luckie Nansy,
Auld springs wad ding the new,
But ye wad never trow me.

Nor snaw with crimson will I mix,
To spread upon my lassie's cheeks;
And syne th' unmeaning name prefix,
Miranda, Chloe, Phillis.

I'll fetch na simile frae Jove,
My height of extacy to prove,
Nor sighing-thus-present my love
With roses eke and lilies.

I was aye telling you, &c.

But stay- I had amaist forgot
My mistress and my sang to boot,
But that's an unco faut, I wot-

But, Nansy, 'tis nae matter.
Ye see, I clink my verse wi' rhyme,
And, ken ye, that atones the crime;
Forbye, how sweet my numbers chime,
And slide away like water!

I was aye telling you, &c.

Now ken, my reverend sonsy fair,
Thy runkled cheeks and lyart hair,
Thy half-shut een and hodling air,

Are a' my passion's fuel.

Nae skyring gowk, my dear, can see
Or love, or grace, or heaven in thee,
Yet thou hast charms enow for me,-
Then smile, and be na cruel.

Leeze me on thy snawy pow,
Luckie Nansy, luckie Nansy;
Driest wood will eithest low,
And Nansy, sae will ye now.

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Twa gaed to the wood, to the wood, to the wood,
Twa gaed to the wood--three cam' hame :
An it be na weel bobbit, weel bobbit, weel
bobbit,

An it be na weel bobbit, we 'll bob it again.

I insert this song to introduce the following anecdote, which I have heard well authenticated:-In the evening of the day of the Battle of Dumblane (Sheriff-Muir), when the action was over, a Scots officer, in Argyll's army, observed to his Grace that he was afraid the rebels would give out to the world that they had gotten the victory. "Weel, weel," returned his Grace, alluding to the foregoing ballad, "if they think it be na weel bobbit, we 'll bob it again."

[The battle of Dumblane, or Sheriff-Muir, was fought on the 13th of November, 1715, between the Earl of Mar, for Prince Charles Edward, and the Duke of Argyle, for the Government. Both sides claimed the victory, the left wing of each army being routed.]

Appendix.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST, OR KILMARNOCK EDITION.

[Barring the extravagant praise here accorded to Shenstone, and the extraordinary deference shown by Burns to his predecessors, Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson, nothing could possibly have been in better taste than the subjoined Preface to his maiden volume, which was published on the 31st of July, 1786, in a thinnish 8vo, price 3s. (blue boarded and with a white back), by John Wilson at Kilmarnock. Exactly 612 copies were printed, 350 subscribers being enrolled before the book made its appearance. A facsimile of the volume was reprinted, price half-a-guinea, on the 31st of July, 1367, by James McKie, at Kilmarnock.]

The following trifles are not the production of the Poet who, with all the advantages of learned art, and, perhaps, amid the elegancies and idleness of upper life, looks down for a rural theme, with an eye to Theocritus or Virgil. To the Author of this, these and other celebrated names, their countrymen are, at least in their original language, "a fountain shut up, and a book sealed." Unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing poet by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers around him, in his and their native language. Though a rhymer from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulse of the softer passions, it was not till very lately that the applause, perhaps the partiality, of friendship, awakened his vanity so far as to make him think anything of his worth showing; and none of the following works were composed with a view to the press. To amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the toil and fatigue of a laborious life; to transcribe the various feelings-the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears-in his own breast; to find some kind of counterpoise to the struggles of a world, always an alien scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind-these were his motives for courting the Muses, and in these he found Poetry to be its own reward.

Now that he appears in the public character of an Author, he does it with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that even he, an obscure, nameless Bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of being branded as-an impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the world; and, because he can make shift to jingle a few doggerel Scottish rhymes together, looking upon himself as a poet, of no small consequence, forsooth!

It is an observation of that celebrated poet, Shenstone, whose divine Elegies do honour to our language, our nation, and our species, that "Humility has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised one to fame!" If any critic catches at the word Genius, the author tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilities, otherwise his publishing, in the manner he has done, would be a manœuvre below the worst character which, he hopes, his worst enemy will ever give him. But to the genius of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor unfortunate Fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity, declares that, even in his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pretensions. These two justly admired Scottish poets he has often had in his eye in the following pieces; but rather with a view to kindle at their flame than for servile imitation.

To his Subscribers the Author returns his most sincere thanks. Not the mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the Bard, conscious how much he owes to benevolence and friendship for gratifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every poetic bosom-to be distinguished. He begs his readers, particularly the learned and the polite, who may honour him with a perusal, that they will make every allowance for education and circumstances of life; but if, after a fair, candid, and impartial criticism, he shall stand convicted of dullness and nonsense, let him be done by as he would in that case do by others-let him be condemned, without mercy, to contempt and oblivion.

DEDICATION TO THE SECOND, OR EDINBURGH, EDITION OF THE POEMS OF BURNS.

[This re-issue of Burns is variously known as the First Edinburgh or Caledonian Hunt Edition. It was published in 8vo by William Creech, price 5s. to subscribers, 6s. to non-subscribers, the imprint being one of 3,000 copies, which were very rapidly, indeed, sold off, 2,800, in fact, being secured beforehand by subscribers. The book made its appearance on the 21st of April, 1787, and within the same year a London Edition was brought out, printed for A. Strachan and T. Cadell in the Strand, as well as for W. Creech of Edinburgh.]

TO THE NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CALEDONIAN HUNT.

MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

A SCOTTISH BARD, proud of the name, and whose highest ambition is to sing in his Country's service--where shall he so properly look for patronage as to the illustrious names of his native land; those who bear the honours and inherit the virtues of their ancestors? The Poetic Genius of my Country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha-at the PLOUGH; and threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures of my native soil, in my native tongue: I tuned my wild, artless notes as she inspired. She whispered me to come to this ancient Metropolis of Caledonia, and lay my Songs under your honoured protection: I now obey her dictates.

Though much indebted to your goodness, I do not approach you, my Lords and Gentlemen, in the usual style of dedication, to thank you for past favours: that path is so hackneyed by prostituted learning, that honest Rusticity is ashamed of it. Nor do I present this Address with the venal soul of a servile author, looking for a continuation of those favours: I was bred to the plough, and am independent. I come to claim the common Scottish name with you, my illustrious Countrymen; and to tell the world that I glory in the title. I come to congratulate my country, that the blood of her ancient heroes still runs uncontaminated; and that from your courage, knowledge, and public spirit, she may expect protection, wealth, and liberty. In the last place, I come to proffer my warmest wishes to the Great Fountain of Honour, the Monarch of the Universe, for your welfare and happiness.

When you go forth to waken the Echoes, in the ancient and favourite amusement of your forefathers, may Pleasure ever be of your party: and may Social Joy await your return! When harassed in courts or camps with the jostlings of bad men and bad measures, may the honest consciousness of injured Worth attend your return to your native seats; and may Domestic Happiness, with a smiling welcome, meet you at your gates! May Corruption shrink at your kindling indig nant glance; and may tyranny in the Ruler, and licentiousness in the People, equally find you an inexorable foe!

I have the honour to be,

With the sincerest gratitude, and highest respect,
My Lords and Gentlemen,

Your most devoted, humble Servant,

Edinburgh, April 4, 1787.

ROBERT BURNS.

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