Yet puirtith a' I could forgie, O, why should fate sic pleasure have, This world's wealth when I think on, Her een, sae bonnie blue, betray O, wha can prudence think upon, How blest the humble cottar's lot! Oh, why should fate sic pleasure have, * I have been informed, that Burns wrote this song in consequence of hearing a gentleman (now a respectable citizen of Edinburgh) sing the old homely ditty which gives name to the tune, with an effect which made him regret that such pathetic music should be united to such unsentimental poetry. The meeting, I have been further informed, where this circumstance took place, was held in the poet's favourite tavern, Johnnie Dowie's, in the Lawnmarket, Edinburgh; and there, at a subsequent meeting, the new song was also sung, for the first time, by the same individual. BONNY CHIRSTY.* RAMSAY. How sweetly smells the simmer green; When wandering o'er the flowery park, My thoughts with ecstasies rejoice, Whene'er she smiles a kindly glance, *Spelled Christy in the original, but here altered to suit the ordinary pronunciation and the rhyme. The heroine of the song was Miss Christian Dundas, daughter of Sir James Dundas of Arniston, and married to Sir Charles Areskine of Alva, (who was born in 1613, and knighted in 1666.) She was the mother of Sir Charles Areskine of Alva, Lord Justice-Clerk of Scotland for some years previous to his death in 1765. As her son was born in 1680, we may conjecture that this lady flourished as "Bonny Chirsty" a good while before Ramsay's time; but the poet, who might have written the song in compliment to charms which, though then faded, were still celebrated, is known, from the " Orpheus Caledonius," to have only substituted it for an older song, now lost. A portrait of Lady Areskine, exhibiting such a degree of beauty and grace as fully to justify her common title of Bonny Chirsty, is still in the possession of her descendants. From the circumstance of Ramsay having commenced his collection with this song, it would appear that it was, out of all his compositions in this department of poetry, his own favourite. But, dubious of my ain desert, Thus sung blate Edie by a burn; My Chirsty! Witness, bonnie stream, Time was too precious now for tauk ; He wadna with set speeches baulk, MARY. BURNS. TUNE-The Yowe-buchts. WILL ye go to the Indies, my Mary, Oh, sweet grow the lime and the orange, And the apple on the pine; But a' the charms o' the Indies Can never equal thine. I hae sworn by the heavens, my Mary, O, plight me your faith, my Mary, We hae plighted our troth, my Mary, And curst be the cause that shall part us! FAIREST OF THE FAIR. DR PERCY. [SCOTTISH VERSION.] TUNE-Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me ? O, NANNIE wilt thou gang wi' me, Nae langer deck'd wi' jewels rare, * When Burns was designing his voyage to the West Indies, he wrote this song as a farewell to a girl whom he happened to regard, at the time, with considerable admiration. He afterwards sent it to Mr Thomson for publication in his splendid collection of the national music and musical poetry of Scotland. O Nannie, when thou'rt far awa, O Nannie, canst thou love so true, Wilt thou assume the nurse's care, And when at last thy love shall die, THE BLACK BIRD.* [JACOBITE SONG.] UPON a fair morning, for soft recreation, This song, which appeared in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, is inserted here as a specimen of the allegorical poetry under which the Jaco |