The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 280

CHORUS.

"Sae merry as we twa ha'e been, Sae merry as we twa ha'e been; My heart is like for to break, When I think on the days we ha'e seen."

THE BANKS OF FORTH.

This air is Oswald's.

THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR.

This is another beautiful song of Mr. Crawfurd's composition. In the neighbourhood of Traquair, tradition still shows the old "Bush;"

which, when I saw it, in the year 1787, was composed of eight or nine ragged birches. The Earl of Traquair has planted a clump of trees near by, which he calls "The New Bush."

CROMLET'S LILT.

The following interesting account of this plaintive dirge was communicated to Mr. Riddel by Alexander Fraser Tytler, Esq., of Woodhouselee.

"In the latter end of the sixteenth century, the Chisolms were proprietors of the estate of Cromlecks (now possessed by the Drummonds). The eldest son of that family was very much attached to a daughter of Sterling of Ardoch, commonly known by the name of Fair Helen of Ardoch.

"At that time the opportunities of meeting betwixt the s.e.xes were more rare, consequently more sought after than now; and the Scottish ladies, far from priding themselves on extensive literature, were thought sufficiently book-learned if they could make out the Scriptures in their mother-tongue. Writing was entirely out of the line of female education. At that period the most of our young men of family sought a fortune, or found a grave, in France. Cromlus, when he went abroad to the war, was obliged to leave the management of his correspondence with his mistress to a lay-brother of the monastery of Dumblain, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cromleck, and near Ardoch.

This man, unfortunately, was deeply sensible of Helen's charms. He artfully prepossessed her with stories to the disadvantage of Cromlus; and, by misinterpreting or keeping up the letters and messages intrusted to his care, he entirely irritated both. All connexion was broken off betwixt them; Helen was inconsolable, and Cromlus has left behind him, in the ballad called 'Cromlet's Lilt,' a proof of the elegance of his genius, as well as the steadiness of his love.

"When the artful monk thought time had sufficiently softened Helen's sorrow, he proposed himself as a lover: Helen was obdurate: but at last, overcome by the persuasions of her brother, with whom she lived, and who, having a family of thirty-one children, was probably very well pleased to get her off his hands--she submitted, rather than consented to the ceremony; but there her compliance ended; and, when forcibly put into bed, she started quite frantic from it, screaming out, that after three gentle taps on the wainscot, at the bed-head, she heard Cromlus's voice, crying, 'Helen, Helen, mind me!' Cromlus soon after coming home, the treachery of the confidant was discovered,--her marriage disannulled,--and Helen became Lady Cromlecks."

N. B. Marg. Murray, mother to these thirty-one children, was daughter to Murray of Strewn, one of the seventeen sons of Tullybardine, and whose youngest son, commonly called the Tutor of Ardoch, died in the year 1715, aged 111 years.

MY DEARIE, IF THOU DIE.

Another beautiful song of Crawfurd's.

SHE ROSE AND LOOT ME IN.

The old set of this song, which is still to be found in printed collections, is much prettier than this; but somebody, I believe it was Ramsay, took it into his head to clear it of some seeming indelicacies, and made it at once more chaste and more dull.

GO TO THE EWE-BUGHTS, MARION.

I am not sure if this old and charming air be of the South, as is commonly said, or of the North of Scotland. There is a song, apparently as ancient us "Ewe-bughts, Marion," which sings to the same tune, and is evidently of the North.--It begins thus:

"The Lord o' Gordon had three dochters, Mary, Marget, and Jean, They wad na stay at bonie Castle Gordon, But awa to Aberdeen."

LEWIS GORDON.

This air is a proof how one of our Scots tunes comes to be composed out of another. I have one of the earliest copies of the song, and it has prefixed,

"Tune of Tarry Woo."--

Of which tune a different set has insensibly varied into a different air.--To a Scots critic, the pathos of the line,

"'Tho' his back be at the wa',"

--must be very striking. It needs not a Jacobite prejudice to be affected with this song.

The supposed author of "Lewis Gordon" was a Mr. Geddes, priest, at Shenval, in the Ainzie.

O HONE A RIE.

Dr. Blacklock informed me that this song was composed on the infamous ma.s.sacre of Glencoe.

I'LL NEVER LEAVE THEE.

This is another of Crawfurd's songs, but I do not think in his happiest manner.--What an absurdity, to join such names as _Adonis_ and _Mary_ together!

CORN RIGS ARE BONIE.

All the old words that ever I could meet to this air were the following, which seem to have been an old chorus:

"O corn rigs and rye rigs, O corn rigs are bonie; And where'er you meet a bonie la.s.s, Preen up her c.o.c.kernony."