The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 283

WALY, WALY.

In the west country I have heard a different edition of the second stanza.--Instead of the four lines, beginning with, "When c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.ls, &c.," the other way ran thus:--

"O wherefore need I busk my head, Or wherefore need I kame my hair, Sin my fause luve has me forsook, And sys, he'll never luve me mair."

DUNCAN GRAY.

Dr. Blacklock informed me that he had often heard the tradition, that this air was composed by a carman in Glasgow.

DUMBARTON DRUMS.

This is the last of the West-Highland airs; and from it over the whole tract of country to the confines of Tweedside, there is hardly a tune or song that one can say has taken its origin from any place or transaction in that part of Scotland.--The oldest Ayrs.h.i.+re reel, is Stewarton La.s.ses, which was made by the father of the present Sir Walter Montgomery Cunningham, alias Lord Lysle; since which period there has indeed been local music in that country in great plenty.--Johnie Faa is the only old song which I could ever trace as belonging to the extensive county of Ayr.

CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN.

This song is by the Duke of Gordon.--The old verses are,

"There's cauld kail in Aberdeen, And castocks in Strathbogie; When ilka lad maun hae his la.s.s, Then fye, gie me my coggie.

CHORUS.

My coggie, Sirs, my coggie, Sirs, I cannot want my coggie; I wadna gie my three-girr'd cap For e'er a quene on Bogie.--

There's Johnie Smith has got a wife, That scrimps him o' his coggie, If she were mine, upon my life I wad douk her in a bogie."

FOR LAKE OF GOLD.

The country girls in Ayrs.h.i.+re, instead of the line--

"She me forsook for a great duke,"

say

"For Athole's duke she me forsook;"

which I take to be the original reading.

These were composed by the late Dr. Austin, physician at Edinburgh.--He had courted a lady, to whom he was shortly to have been married; but the Duke of Athole having seen her, became so much in love with her, that he made proposals of marriage, which were accepted of, and she jilted the doctor.

HERE'S A HEALTH TO MY TRUE LOVE, &c.

This song is Dr. Blacklock's. He told me that tradition gives the air to our James IV. of Scotland.

HEY TUTTI TAITI.

I Have met the tradition universally over Scotland, and particularly about Stirling, in the neighbourhood of the scene, that this air was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn.

RAVING WINDS AROUND HER BLOWING.

I Composed these verses on Miss Isabella M'Leod, of Raza, alluding to her feelings on the death of her sister, and the still more melancholy death of her sister's husband, the late Earl of Loudon; who shot himself out of sheer heart-break at some mortifications he suffered, owing to the deranged state of his finances.

TAK YOUR AULD CLOAK ABOUT YE.

A part of this old song, according to the English set of it, is quoted in Shakspeare.

YE G.o.dS, WAS STREPHON'S PICTURE BLEST?

Tune--"Fourteenth of October."

The t.i.tle of this air shows that it alludes to the famous king Crispian, the patron of the honourable corporation of shoemakers.--St.

Crispian's day falls on the fourteenth of October old style, as the old proverb tells:

"On the fourteenth of October Was ne'er a sutor sober."

SINCE ROBB'D OF ALL THAT CHARM'D MY VIEWS.