To win me frae these waefu' thoughts, Ye sons to comrades o' my youth, Your hearts may feel like mine; LEADER HAUGHS AND YARROW.* NICOL BURNE. TUNE-Leader Haughs and Yarrow. WHEN Phoebus bright the azure skies Herbs, trees, and flowers he quick❜neth: *This song is little better than a string of names of places. Yet there is something so pleasing in it, especially to the ear of " a south-country man," that it has long maintained its place in our collections. We all know what impressive verse Milton makes out of mere catalogues of localities. The author, Nicol Burne, is supposed to have been one of the last of the old race of minstrels. In an old collection of songs, in their original state of ballants, I have seen his name printed as "Burne the violer," which seems to indicate the instrument upon which he was in the practice of accompanying his recitations. I was told by an aged person at Earlston, that there used to be a portrait of him in Thirlstane Castle, representing him as a douce old man, leading a cow by a straw-rope. Thirlstane Castle, the seat of the Earl of Lauderdale, near Lauder, is the castle of which the poet speaks in such terms of admiration. It derives the Amongst all those he makes his choice, When Aries the day and night Then Flora queen, with mantle green, Pan, playing on his aiten reed, A house there stands on Leader side, With rooms sae rare, and windows fair, Men passing by do aften cry, In sooth it hath no marrow; As Newark does on Yarrow. massive beauties of its architecture from the Duke of Lauderdale, who built it, as the date above the door-way testifies, in the year 1671. The song must therefore have been composed since that era. It was printed in the Tea-Table Miscellany; which, taken in connexion with the last stanza, seems to point out that it was written at some of the periods of national commotion between the reign of the last Charles and the first George-probably the Union. The Blainslie oats are still in repute, being used in many places for seed; and Lauderdale still boasts of all the other pleasant farms and estates which are here so endearingly commemorated by the poet, A mile below, who lists to ride, The lapwing lilteth ower the lea, I'll stretch my wing, and, mounting, sing Park, Wanton-wa's, and Wooden-cleuch, In Burn-mill-bog and Whitslaid Shaws, That she should leave sweet Leader Haughs, What sweeter music wad ye hear, Than hounds and beagles crying? The started hare rins hard with fear, But yet her strength it fails at length; In Sorrowless-fields, Clackmae, or Hags; For Rockwood, Ringwood, Spotty, Shag, Nae cunning can rescue her: Ower dub and dyke, ower sheuch and syke, * Sing Erslington and Cowdenknowes, But Minstrel Burne can not assuage *Earlston, formerly spelled Ercildoun. The editor thinks it proper here to mention, that this is the first copy of "Leader Haughs and Yarrow" in which any attempt has been made to spell the names of the places correctly. The spelling and punctuation hitherto adopted have been such as to render the song almost unintelligible. THE YOWE-BUCHTS, MARION. TUNE-The Yowebuchts. WILL ye go to the yowe-buchts, Marion, And the blythe blink 's in her ee; There's gowd in your garters, Marion,* There's braw lads in Earnslaw, Marion, I've nine milk-yowes, my Marion, And ye'se get a green sey apron, I'm young and stout, my Marion; Nane dances like me on the green : *At the time when the ladies wore hoops, they also wore finely-embroidered garters for exhibition; because, especially in dancing, the hoop often shelved aside, and exposed the leg to that height.-See Traditions of Edinburgh, vol. II. page 57. |