The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 282

THE HIGHLAND La.s.sIE O.

This was a composition of mine in very early life, before I was known at all in the world. My Highland la.s.sie was a warm-hearted, charming young creature as ever blessed a man with generous love. After a pretty long tract of the most ardent reciprocal attachment, we met by appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot by the banks of Ayr, where we spent the day in taking a farewell before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life. At the close of autumn following she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she had scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried my dear girl to the grave in a few days, before I could even hear of her last illness.

FIFE, AND A' THE LANDS ABOUT IT.

This song is Dr. Blacklock's. He, as well as I, often gave Johnson verses, trifling enough perhaps, but they served as a vehicle to the music.

WERE NA MY HEART LIGHT I WAD DIE.

Lord Hailes, in the notes to his collection of ancient Scots poems, says that this song was the composition of a Lady Grissel Baillie, daughter of the first Earl of Marchmont, and wife of George Baillie, of Jerviswood.

THE YOUNG MAN'S DREAM.

This song is the composition of Balloon Tytler.

STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT.

This air in the composition of one of the worthiest and best-hearted men living--Allan Masterton, schoolmaster in Edinburgh. As he and I were both sprouts of Jacobitism we agreed to dedicate the words and air to that cause.

To tell the matter-of-fact, except when my pa.s.sions were heated by some accidental cause, my Jacobitism was merely by way of _vive la bagatelle._

UP IN THE MORNING EARLY.

The chorus of this is old; the two stanzas are mine.

THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND.

Dr. Blacklock told me that Smollet, who was at the bottom a great Jacobite, composed these beautiful and pathetic verses on the infamous depredations of the Duke of c.u.mberland after the battle of Culloden.

WHAT WILL I DO GIN MY HOGGIE DIE.

Dr. Walker, who was minister at Moffat in 1772, and is now (1791) Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, told the following anecdote concerning this air.--He said, that some gentlemen, riding a few years ago through Liddesdale, stopped at a hamlet consisting of a few houses, called Moss Platt, when they were struck with this tune, which an old woman, spinning on a rock at her door, was singing. All she could tell concerning it was, that she was taught it when a child, and it was called "What will I do gin my Hoggie die?"

No person, except a few females at Moss Platt, knew this fine old tune, which in all probability would have been lost had not one of the gentlemen, who happened to have a flute with him, taken it down.

I DREAM'D I LAY WHERE FLOWERS WERE SPRINGING.

These two stanzas I composed when I was seventeen, and are among the oldest of my printed pieces.

AH! THE POOR SHEPHERD'S MOURNFUL FATE.

Tune--"Gallas.h.i.+els."

The old t.i.tle, "Sour Plums o' Gallas.h.i.+els," probably was the beginning of a song to this air, which is now lost.

The tune of Gallas.h.i.+els was composed about the beginning of the present century by the Laird of Gallas.h.i.+el's piper.

THE BANKS OF THE DEVON.

These verses were composed on a charming girl, a Miss Charlotte Hamilton, who is now married to James M'Kitrick Adair, Esq., physician. She is sister to my worthy friend Gavin Hamilton, of Mauchline, and was born on the banks of the Ayr, but was, at the time I wrote these lines, residing at Herveyston, in Clackmannans.h.i.+re, on the romantic banks of the little river Devon. I first heard the air from a lady in Inverness, and got the notes taken down for this work.

MILL, MILL O.

The original, or at least a song evidently prior to Ramsay's is still extant.--It runs thus,

CHORUS.

"The mill, mill O, and the kill, kill O, And the coggin o' Peggy's wheel, O, The sack and the sieve, and a' she did leave, And danc'd the miller's reel O.--

As I came down yon waterside, And by yon sh.e.l.lin-hill O, There I spied a bonie bonie la.s.s, And a la.s.s that I lov'd right well O."

WE RAN AND THEY RAN.

The author of "We ran and they ran"--was a Rev. Mr. Murdoch M'Lennan, minister at Crathie, Dee-side.