GALA WATER.* BURNS. TUNE-Gala Water. THERE'S braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, Das Leben wäre leerer Schall, Nach Reichthum jagt das Volk sich matt, Nur eine Stund' an jedem Tag, Doch wer mir das für Thorheit hält, Fragt bei Natur, der Alten, an, Und sie wird gern es Euch gestehn, B. WOLFF. *The original song of Gala Water was thus recited to me by a person resident in that interesting district of Scotland: Bonnie lass o' Gala Water, Sae fair her hair, sae brent her brow, Bonnie lass, &c. Ower yonder moss, ower yonder muir, O, I could rin, wi' heart sae licht, It is otherwise given, as follows, in Herd's Collection, 1776. Braw, braw lads of Gala Water, O, braw lads of Gala Water, I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee, And follow my love through the water. But there is ane, a secret ane, Although his daddie was nae laird, And though I hae na mickle tocher; Yet rich in kindest, truest love, We'll tent our flocks on Gala Water. It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth, O that's the chiefest warld's treasure! THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS. BURNS. THE lovely lass o' Inverness, Nae joy nor pleasure can she see, My father dear and brethren three. Their winding-sheets, the bluidy clay; Sae fair her hair, sae brent her brow, Ower yon bank, and ower yon brae, Down amang the broom, the broom, That gart her greet till she was wearie. Now, wae to thee, thou cruel lord! That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee. GIN YE MEET A BONNIE LASSIE. RAMSAY. TUNE-Fy, gar rub her ower wi' strae. GIN ye meet a bonnie lassie, And lay ye twa-fauld ower a rung. Sweet youth's a blythe and heartsome time: Before it wither and decay. Watch the saft minutes o' delight, When Jenny speaks below her breath, And kisses, layin' a' the wyte On if she kep ony you skaith. Haith, ye're ill-bred, she'll smilin' say, Now to her heavin' bosom cling, These benisons, I'm very sure, * ANNIE LAURIE.+ MAXWELTON banks are bonnie, She's backit like the peacock; Her waist ye weel micht span: From the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1724. Connected with this song, which few readers will require to be informed is a paraphrase, and a very happy one, of the celebrated "Vides ut alta" of Horace, the following anecdote may be told :-In a large mixed company which had assembled one night in the house of a citizen of Edinburgh, where Robert Burns happened to be present, somebody sung, "Gin ye meet a bonnie Lassie," with excellent effect, insomuch as to throw all present into a sort of rapture. The only exception lay with a stiff pedantic old schoolmaster, who, in all the consciousness of superior critical acumen, and determined to be pleased with nothing which was not strictly classical, sat erect in his chair, with a countenance full of disdain, and rigidly abstained from expressing the slightest symptom of satisfaction. What ails you at the sang, Mr ?" inquired an honest citizen of the name of Boog, who had been particularly delighted with it. "Oh, nothing," answered the man of learning; "only the whole of it is stolen from Horace."-" Houts, man," replied Mr Boog, "Horace has rather stown from the auld sang."-This ludicrous observation was met with absolute shouts of laughter, the whole of which was at the expense of the discomfited critic; and Burns was pleased to express his hearty thanks to the citizen for having set the matter to rights. He seems, from a passage in Cromek's Reliques, to have afterwards made use of the observation as his own. + These two verses, which are in a style wonderfully tender and chaste for their age, were written by a Mr Douglas of Fingland, upon Anne, one of the four daughters of Sir Robert Laurie, first baronet of Maxwelton, by his second wife, who was a daughter of Riddell of Minto. As Sir Robert was created a baronet in the year 1685, it is probable that the verses were composed about the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is painful to record, that, notwithstanding the ardent and chivalrous affection displayed by Mr Douglas in his poem, he did not obtain the heroine for a wife: She was married to Mr Ferguson of Craigdarroch.-See" A Ballad Book," (printed at Edinburgh in 1824,) p. 107. Her waist ye weel micht span, LOVELY JEAN. BURNS. TUNE-Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey. Or a' the airts the wind can blaw, I dearly like the west; The lass that I lo'e best: Though wild woods grow, and rivers row, Wi' monie a hill between, I see her in the dewy flow'rs, I hear her voice in ilka bird Wi' music charms the air: O blaw, ye westlin winds, blaw saft, Wi' gentle gale, frae muir and dale, What sighs and vows, amang the knowes, Hae past atween us twa! How fain to meet, how wae to part, That day she gaed awa! |