Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

Then foul fa' me gin I scorn thee;
If ye'll be my Jenny, I'll be your Jock.

Jenny lookit, and syne she leuch,
Ye first maun get my mither's consent.
Aweel, guidwife, and what say ye?
Quo' she, Jock, I am weel content.

Jenny to her mother did say,

O mother, fetch us ben some meat;
A piece o' the butter was kirn'd the day;
That Jocky and I thegither may eat.

Jocky unto Jenny did say,

Jenny, my dear, I want nae meat;
It was nae for meat that I cam' here,
But a' for luve o' you, Jenny, my dear.

Jenny she gaed up the gate,

Wi' a green goun as syde* as her smock; And aye sae loud as her mother did rair, Wow, sirs! hasna Jenny got Jock? +

JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO.

BURNS.

TUNE-John Anderson, my Jo.

JOHN ANDERSON, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonny brow was brent;
But now your head is bauld, John,
Your locks are like the snow,
Yet blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.

* Syde-long.

From Herd's Collection, 1776

John Anderson, my jo, John,
We climb'd the hill thegither,
And monie a cantie day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go,
And we'll sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.*

LET NOT WOMAN E'ER COMPLAIN.

BURNS.

TUNE-Duncan Gray.

LET not woman e'er complain
Of inconstancy in love;
Let not woman e'er complain,
Fickle man is apt to rove.

Look abroad through nature's range,
Nature's mighty law is change;
Ladies, would it not be strange,

Man should, then, a monster prove?

Mark the winds, and mark the skies
Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow.
Sun and moon but set to rise;
Round and round the seasons go.

Why, then, ask of silly man,
To oppose great nature's plan?
We'll be constant while we can,

You can be no more, you know.

[ocr errors]

Burns formed these two beautiful verses on the model of an old and somewhat indelicate song, which was sung to the same tune, and which may be found in Johnson's Musical Museum. It is stated in the Museum, that the John Anderson mentioned in the song was said, by tradition, to have been the town piper of Kelso. The air is believed to have been a piece of sacred music previous to the Reformation.

THE AULD GUDEMAN.*
TUNE-My auld Gudeman.

LATE in an evening forth I went,
A little before the sun gaed down;
And there I chanced, by accident,
To light on a battle new begun.
A man and his wife were faun in strife;
I canna weel tell how it began;

But

aye she wail'd her wretched life,

And cried ever, Alake, my auld gudeman!

HE.

The auld gudeman that thou tells of,
The country kens where he was born,
Was but a puir silly vagabond,

And ilka ane leuch him to scorn;
For he did spend and mak' an end

Of gear that his forefathers wan;
He gart the puir stand frae the door:
Sae tell nae mair of thy auld gudeman.

SHE.

My heart, alake, is like to break,

When I think on my winsome John ;

His blinking een, and gait sae free,

Was naething like thee, thou dozent drone.

His rosy face and flaxen hair,

And skin as white as ony swan,

Was large and tall, and comely withal;

And thou❜lt never be like my auld gudeman.

HE.

Why dost thou pleen? I thee mainteen ;
For meal and maut thou disna want;

Anglice-the first husband.

But thy wild bees I canna please,

Now when our gear 'gins to grow scant.
Of household stuff thou hast enough ;
Thou wants for neither pot nor pan;
Of siclike ware he left thee bare:

Sae tell me nae mair of thy auld gudeman.

SHE.

Yes, I may tell, and fret mysell,
To think on the blythe days I had,
When he and I thegither lay

In arms, into a weel-made bed.

But now I sigh, and may be sad;

Thy courage is cauld, thy colour wan;
Thou faulds thy feet, and fa's asleep :

And thou'lt never be like my auld gudeman.

Then coming was the nicht sae dark,
And gane was a' the licht of day;
The carle was fear'd to miss his mark,
And therefore wad nae langer stay.
Then up he gat, and he ran his way;
I trow the wife the day she wan;
And aye the owerword o' the fray
Was ever, Alake, my auld gudeman!*

THE THISTLE OF SCOTLAND.

TUNE-The Black Joke.

LET them boast of the country gave Patrick his birth, Of the land of the ocean, the neighbouring earth, With their red-blushing roses, and shamrock so green:

From the Tea-Table Miscellany, (1724,) where it is marked as a song of unknown antiquity.

Far dearer to me are the hills of the north,
The land of blue mountains, the birth-place of worth;
Those mountains where freedom has fix'd her abode,
Those wide-spreading glens where no slave ever trode,
Where blooms the red heather and thistle so green.

Though rich be the soil where blossoms the rose,
And barren the mountains, and cover'd with snows,
Where blooms the red heather and thistle so green;
Yet, for friendship sincere, and loyalty true,
And for courage so bold that no foe can pursue,
Unmatch'd is our country, unrivall'd our swains;
And lovely and true are the nymphs of our plains,
Where rises the thistle, the thistle so green.

Far-famed are our sires in the battles of yore,
And many the cairns that rise bold on our shore,

O'er the foes of the land of the thistle so green:
And many the cairns that shall rise on our strand,
Should the torrent of war ever burst on our land.
Let foe come on foe, as wave comes on wave,
We'll give them a welcome, we'll give them a grave
Beneath the red heather and thistle so green.

O, dear to our souls, as the blessings of heaven,
Is the freedom we boast, is the land that we live in,
The land of red heather and thistles so green :
For that land and that freedom our fathers have bled;
And we swear by the blood that our fathers have shed,
No foot of a foe shall e'er tread on their grave;
But the thistle shall bloom on the bed of the brave,
The thistle of Scotland, the thistle so green.*

*Stated by Mr Hogg, in his Jacobite Relics, to be the composition of a Mr Sutherland, a land-surveyor.

« AnteriorContinuar »