Wild Nature's tenants freely, gladly stray;
The lintwhite in his bower
Chants o'er the breathing flower;
The laverock to the sky

Ascends wi' sangs of joy,

While the sun and thou arise, to bless the day.

Phoebus gilding the brow o' morning,
Banishes ilka darksome shade,

Nature gladdening and adorning ;
Such to me my lovely maid.
When absent frae my fair,
The murky shades o' care
With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky;
But when, in beauty's light,
She meets my ravished sight,
When through my very heart
Her beaming glories dart;
'Tis then I wake to life, to light, to joy.*

MY AULD MAN.

TUNE-Saw ye my Father?

IN the land of Fife there lived a wicked wife,
And in the town of Cupar then,

Who sorely did lament, and made her complaint,
Oh when will ye die, my auld man?

In cam her cousin Kate, when it was growing late,
She said, What's gude for an auld man ?

O wheit-breid and wine, and a kinnen new slain;
That's gude for an auld man,

Cam ye in to jeer, or cam ye in to scorn,
And what for came ye in?

For bear-bread and water, I'm sure, is much better—
It's ower gude for an auld man.

* Burns composed this song late in an evening of October 1794, as he was returning from a friend's house in the neighbourhood of Dumfries, where he had seen at dinner one of his favourite heroines, Miss Philadelphia Macmurdo.

Now the auld man's deid, and, without remeid,
Into his cauld grave he's gane:

Lie still wi' my blessing! of thee I hae nae missing;
I'll ne'er mourn for an auld man.

Within a little mair than three quarters of a year,
She was married to a young man then,
Who drank at the wine, and tippled at the beer,
And spent more gear than he wan.

O black grew her brows, and howe grew her een,
And cauld grew
her pat and her pan:

And now she sighs, and aye she says,

I wish I had my silly auld man!*

SAW YE MY PEGGY.

TUNE-Saw ye my Peggy?

SAW ye nae my Peggy,
Saw ye nae my Peggy,

Saw ye nae my Peggy,
Coming ower the lea?
Sure a finer creature
Ne'er was formed by Nature,
So complete each feature,
So divine is she!

O! how Peggy charms me;
Every look still warms me;
Every thought alarms me;
Lest she loe nae me.
Peggy doth discover

Nought but charms all over:

*From Ritson's "Scottish Songs," 1793, into which the editor menons that it was copied from some common collection, whose title he did not remember. It has often been the task of the Scottish muse to point out the evils of ill-assorted alliances; but she has scarcely ever done so with so much humour, and, at the same time, so much force of moral painting, as in the present case. No tune is assigned to the song in Ritson's Collection; but the present editor has ventured to suggest the fine air," Saw ye my father," rather as being suitable to the peculiar rhythm of the verses, than to the spirit of the composition.

Nature bids me love her
That's a law to me.

Who would leave a lover,
To become a rover?
No, I'll ne'er give over,
Till I happy be.
For since love inspires me,
As her beauty fires me,
And her absence tires me,
Nought can please but she.

When I hope to gain her,
Fate seems to detain her;
Could I but obtain her,
Happy would I be !
I'll lie down before her,
Bless, sigh, and adore her,

With faint looks implore her,

Till she pity me.

*

"This charming

* From Johnson's Musical Museum, vol. I., 1787. song," says Burns, [Cromek's Reliques,] " is much older, and indeed superior, to Ramsay's verses, The Toast, as he calls them. There is another set of the words, much older still, and which I take to be the original one, as follows-a song familiar from the cradle to every Scottish ear:

Saw ye my Maggie,
Saw ye my Maggie,
Saw ye my Maggie,

Linkin ower the lea?

High-kiltit was she,
High-kiltit was she,
High-kiltit was she,

Her coat aboon her knee.

What mark has your Maggie,
What mark has your Maggie,
What mark has your Maggie,

That ane may ken her be? (by).

Though it by no means follows that the silliest verses to an air must, for that reason, be the original song, yet I take this ballad, of which I have quoted part, to be the old verses. The two songs in Ramsay, one of them evidently his own, are never to be met with in the fire-side circle of our peasantry; while that which I take to be the old song is in every shepherd's mouth."

THE BRIDAL O'T.

ALEXANDER ROSS.*

TUNE-Lucy Campbell.

THEY say that Jockey'll speed weel o't,
They say that Jockey'll speed weel o't,
For he grows brawer ilka day;

I hope we'll hae a bridal o't:
For yesternight, nae farther gane,
The back-house at the side-wa' o't,
He there wi' Meg was mirdin't seen;
I hope we'll hae a bridal o't.

An we had but a bridal o't,

An we had but a bridal o't,
We'd leave the rest unto good luck,
Although there might betide ill o't.
For bridal days are merry times,

And young folk like the coming o't,
And scribblers they bang up their rhymes,
And pipers they the bumming o't.

The lasses like a bridal o't,

The lasses like a bridal o't;
Their braws maun be in rank and file,
Although that they should guide ill o't.
The boddom o' the kist is then

Turned up into the inmost o't;
The end that held the keeks sae clean,
Is now become the teemest o't.

The bangster at the threshing o't,
The bangster at the threshing o't,
Afore it comes is fidgin fain,

And ilka day's a clashing o't:
He'll sell his jerkin for a groat,

His linder for another o't,

*Author of the Fortunate Shepherdess, a dramatic poem in the Mearns dialect.

+ Chatting, with familiar dalliance.

And ere he want to clear his shot,
His sark'll pay the tother o't.

The pipers and the fiddlers o't,

The pipers and the fiddlers o't,
Can smell a bridal unco far,

And like to be the middlers o't:
Fan* thick and three-fauld they convene,
Ilk ane envies the tother o't,
And wishes nane but him alane
May ever see another o't.

Fan they hae done wi' eating o't,
Fan they hae done wi' eating o't,
For dancing they gae to the green,
And aiblins to the beatin o't:
He dances best that dances fast,
And loups at ilka reesing o't,
And claps his hands frae hough to hough,
And furls about the feezings o't. ‡

ROYAL CHARLIE.

TUNE-The auld Wife ayont the fire.

OUR gallant Scottish prince was clad
Wi' bonnet blue and tartan plaid,
And oh, he was a handsome lad!
Nane could compare wi' Charlie.
The wale o' chiefs, the great Lochiel,
At Boradale his prince did hail;
And meikle friendship did prevail

Between the chief and Charlie.

* When the vulgar dialect of the north-east coast of Scotland. Whirls.

From Johnson's Musical Museum, vol. III., 1790. The spirit of a vulgar Scottish wedding is here delineated with uncommon vivacity and force of expression. It may be noted, in particular, that nothing could be more correctly descriptive of the system of dancing which obtains at that and all other such assemblages than the last verse. It could only have been improved by some notice of the whoop, or hoogh! a wild, short cry which the male dancers utter at the more animated passages of the saltation-dancing it cannot be called-and which forms, perhaps, one of the most remarkable features in the performance.