[ADDITIONAL STANZA BY BURNS.] O, WERE my love yon lilac fair, When wearied on my little wing; PUIRTITH CAULD. BURNS. TUNE-I had a Horse. O, PUIRTITH cauld, and restless love, 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, O, wha can prudence think upon, How blest the humble cottar's lot! Oh, why should fate sic pleasure have, BONNY CHIRSTY.+ RAMSAY. How sweetly smells the simmer green; When wandering o'er the flowery park, * 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. † 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 1763. 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 Rainsay 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 if my Chirsty tunes her voice, My thoughts with ecstasies rejoice, Whene'er she smiles a kindly glance, And aften mint to make advance, Thus sung blate Edie by a burn; Which left nae room to doubt her; He wisely this white minute took, And flung his arms about her. My Chirsty! Witness, bonnie stream, He wadna with set speeches baulk, MARY. BURNS. TUNE-The Yowe-buchts. WILL ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia's shore? Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, Across the Atlantic's roar? Oh, sweet grow the lime and the orange, 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, O Nannie, when thou'rt far awa, Wilt thou not cast a look behind? *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. Say, canst thou face the flaky snaw, O Nannie, canst thou love so true, Wilt thou assume the nurse's care, And when at last thy love shall die, And cheer with smiles the bed of death? UPON a fair morning, for soft recreation, Yet if death should blind me, as true love inclines me, This song, which appeared in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, is inserted here as a specimen of the allegorical poetry under which the Jacobites, about the beginning of the last century, couched their treasonable sentiments. The allegory of this poem is curious enough. The black bird was one of the nick-names of the Chevalier de St George, being suggested by his complexion, which was so excessively dark as to form a miraculous |