No effeminate customs our sinews unbrace, Our loud-sounding pipe bears the true martial strain, Such our love, &c. We're tall as the oak on the mount of the vale, Such our love, &c. As a storm in the ocean when Boreas blows, Such our love, &c. Quebec and Cape Breton, the pride of old France, In their troops fondly boasted till we did advance; But when our claymores they saw us produce, Their courage did fail, and they sued for a truce. Such our love, &c. In our realm may the fury of faction long cease, May our councils be wise, and our commerce in crease; And in Scotia's cold climate may each of us find, That our friends still prove true, and our beauties prove kind. Then we'll defend our liberty, our country, and our laws, And teach our late posterity to fight in Freedom's cause, That they like our ancestors bold, &c. THE TAILOR FELL THRO' THE BED, THIMBLE AN' A'. THIS air is the march of the Corporation of Tailors.* The second and fourth stanzas are mine. * Probably alluding to the custom of the Incorporations of the Royal Boroughs, in Scotland, perambulating annually the boundaries of their property.-Ed. LEADER HAUGHS AND YARROW. THERE is in several collections, the old song of Leader Haughs and Yarrow. It seems to have been the work of one of our itinerant minstrels, as he calls himself, at the conclusion of his song, Minstrel Burn. When Phabus bright, the azure skies He makes all Nature's beauties rise, Herbs, trees, and flow'rs he quick❜neth: With radiant beams and silver streams When Aries the day and night In equal length divideth, Auld frosty Saturn takes his flight, Nae langer be abideth; Then Flora Queen, with mantle green, Casts aff her former sorrow, And vows to dwell with Ceres' sell, In Leader-Haughs and Yarrow. Pan playing on his aiten reed, An house there stands on Leaderside, Men passing by, do aften cry, A mile below wha lists to ride, The lapwing lilteth o'er the lee, By break of day the lark can say, I'll streek my wing, and mounting, sing Park, Wanton-waws, and Wooden-cleugh, The wood of Lauder's fair enough, In Burmill Bog, and Whiteslade Shaws, Yet when she irks, to Kaidsly birks She rins, and sighs for sorrow, That she should leave sweet Leader-Haughs, And cannot win to Yarrow. |