The poet's correspondence with Clarinda continued, of course, long after he was married, although after the spring of 1788 she is regularly addressed as Mrs. M'Lehose, and never once as Clarinda. All his best songs, of which she is the subject also, were written after he was married. The impassioned lyric "Ae Fond Kiss," as we have already told, was enclosed in a letter written as late as the end of December, 1791. And then if we are to take the poet's own word for it—and there is no reason for not doing so— the following very successful love song "Thine am I "— suggested by recollections of his "lovely Nancy " M'Lehose -was not composed before October, 1793, when it was sent to Thomson, and where Burns says, with reference to it :— "The following song is one of my latest productions, and I send it to you as I would do anything else, because it pleases myself." THINE AM I, MY FAITHFUL FAIR. Thine am I, my faithful fair, Thine, my lovely Nancy; Ev'ry pulse along my veins, To thy bosom lay my heart, Take away these rosy lips, Rich with balmy treasure! Turn away thine eyes of love, Lest I die with pleasure! What is life when wanting love? A song of less merit-" Behold the hour, the boat, arrive!" -belongs to the close of 1791, and there were other minor verses inspired by Clarinda's memory. Not till December, 1794, did Burns compose "My Nanie's Awa'," when, sending it to Thomson for his collection, with a letter dated the 9th of that month, he says:-" I have just framed for you the following." In January, 1788, Clarinda had written to him:- "Oh, let the scenes of Nature remind you of Clarinda! In winter, remember the dark shades of her fate-in Summer, the warmth of her friendship-in Autumn, her glowing wishes to bestow plenty on all-and let Spring animate you with the hopes that your friend may yet surmount the wintry blasts, and revive to taste a springtime of happiness. At all events, Sylvander, the storms of life will quickly pass, and one unbounded Spring encircle all. Love there is no crime. I charge you to meet me there!" Burns greatly admired the passage, and replying, said, “I shall certainly steal it, and set it in some future production, and get immortal fame by it." It gave him hints likely for his "Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson," and again, when the lament is supposed to be for his "old love," when she set out for the West Indies with the hope—vain hope, as it proved-of being re-united in love to her husband : MY NANIE'S AWA'. Now in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays, The snawdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn, Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews o' the lawn, Come Autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and grey, "Nanie," however, had been away and back again before the song lamenting her absence was composed. With the desire of rejoining her husband, she sailed from Leith in February, 1792, and arrived at Kingston, Jamaica, sometime in April. By a curious coincidence, the vessel she sailed in was the "Roselle," the same in which Burns intended to have sailed for the same destination a few years earlier. Her health suffered much by the journey, she tells, especially in the warmer latitudes, and when she reached Kingston, her husband did not come down to the ship for a length of time. When he did come he was very cold, and seemed far from being glad to see her; and even in the first interview, before they left the ship he used such harsh expressions towards her in presence of the captain and others, as wounded her feelings exceedingly. Mixed with an occasional show of kindness there were later ebullitions of temper, too, and for the reason that she was not wanted, and because, as her grandson tells, her presence was irksome in view of the fact that Mr. M'Lehose had a family out there by a coloured mistress, Mrs. M'Lehose, leaving in June, returned home in the ship in which she had gone "Our parting," she says, "was most affectionate." But the following extract from her journal, written many years after is significant :-" Recollect," she says, "that I arrived in Jamaica this day twenty-two years. What I out. 66 suffered during the three months I remained there, Lord, make me grateful for Thy goodness in bringing me back to my native country." She died in 1843, having survived Burns by the long period of forty-five years. Poor, loving, charming, witty, weak, and unhappy Clarinda! She had loved not wisely, but too well. No marvel that she wrote : "Talk not of Love, it gives me pain, For Love has been my foe; He bound me with an iron chain, And sunk me deep in woe." ANNA STEWART FOLLOWING "Clarinda," and ere we reach the period of "Chloris," there come in several heroines of lesser note; the first being Anna or Anne Stewart, who provoked the powerful, though bitter song, "She's Fair and Fause." Anna was no flame of the poet's, to be sure, but was an Edinburgh beauty of some celebrity-the daughter of John Stewart, of East Craigs-of whom his friend and correspondent, Alexander Cunningham, a Writer to the Signet in the capital, was very sincerely enamoured. Writing to Cunningham from Ellisland in the end of July, 1788, Burns commences his letter with some verses in which he says, referring to the passion : "Sweet Anna has an air-a grace, Divine, magnetic, touching; She talks, she charms-but who can trace Again, about the same time, and speaking now in the person of his admiring friend, though for his friend's eye alone, he wrote: |