I said, My lassie, dinna cry, For ye ay shall make the bed to me. She took her mither's holland sheets, The lass that made the bed to me. The lass that made the bed to me. Burns found an old, lively, and unceremonious song, and adopting its narrative, and retaining many of the lines, and preserving something of the stamp and impress of the old, he produced the present lyric. It is not yet quite so pure as it ought to be; but it is far too beautiful to cast away, and too peculiar to alter with much hope of success. The original song, tradition says, was occasioned by an intrigue which Charles the Second had with a Scottish lady before the battle of Worcester. I have heard a much earlier origin ascribed to it :-the peasantry believe it to be one of the compositions of King James the Fifth, in which he embodied some of his own nocturnal adventures. IT WAS A' FOR OUR RIGHTFU' KING. It was a' for our rightfu' king It was a' for our rightfu' king Now a' is done that men can do, An' a' is done in vain : My love an' native land, fareweel! For I maun cross the main, my dear, He turn'd him right an' round about An' ga'e his bridle-reins a shake, With, adieu for evermore, my dear! The sodger frae the wars returns, But I hae parted frae my love, When day is gane, an' night is come, An' a' folk bound to sleep, I think on him that's far awa' The lee-lang night, an' weep, my dear, Tradition ascribes this song to Captain Ogilvie, of the house of Inverquharity, who accompanied King James to Ireland, and fought bravely at the battle of the Boyne. He was one of some hundreds of lowland Scottish gentlemen who voluntarily exiled themselves, and perished by famine and the sword, in the cause of the house of Stuart. Many of them served as common soldiers, and were slain in the wars of aliens in Spain and on the Rhine, while others followed the miserable fortunes of their master, and perished by a consumer as sure and effectual as the sword-disappointed hope. In 1696 only sixteen were left alive: nor did these men fight from a blind religious devotion; only four were Catholics, the rest were members of the Church of England, and some of them had been divines. Every revolution has its stories of sorrow and of wrong; perhaps that of 1688 has less human misery to answer for than any other on record. THE HUMBLE BEGGAR. In Scotland there lived a humble beggar, And they gave him sunkets to rax his wame. Cauld porridge, or the lickings of plates, Wad make him as blythe as a bodie could be. A humbler bodie O never brake bread, In as good order as wallets could be; It happened ill, and it happened warse— Some were merry and some were sad, And some were as blythe as blythe could be, When he started, the gruesome carle, up I rede ye, good folks, beware o' me! Out scraiched Kate, wha sat in the nook,- Twa ell deep, for I gade to see, I looł‚ba^. They brought him down to Douket's kirkyard — gae In fell the coffin and out lap he! He cryed I'm cauld! I'm unco cauld!" oc'A This song is certainly a very old one, though it appeared for the first time in David Herd's collection. The hero seems to have been a kind of martial mendicant, who obtained alms by other means than intercession; his horn and his kale goolie made the impatience of his friends for his interment very justifiable. The joy and the sorrow at his lyke-wake is a very just picture of other times, when, according to the proverb, more mirth was found at the end of a funeral than at the beginning of a wedding. |