STREAMS THAT GLIDE IN ORIENT

PLAINS.

Tune-" Morag."

I.

STREAMS that glide in orient plains,
Never bound by winter's chains;
Glowing here on golden sands,
There commix'd with foulest stains

From tyranny's empurpled bands;
These, their richly gleaming waves,
I leave to tyrants and their slaves;
Give me the stream that sweetly laves
The banks by Castle Gordon.

II.

Spicy forests, ever gay,
Shading from the burning ray,

Hapless wretches sold to toil,
Or the ruthless native's way,

Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil :
Woods that ever verdant wave,

I leave the tyrant and the slave,

Give me the groves that lofty brave

The storms by Castle Gordon.

III.

Wildly here without control,

Nature reigns and rules the whole;
In that sober pensive mood,
Dearest to the feeling soul,

She plants the forest, pours the flood:
Life's poor day I'll musing rave,

And find at night a sheltering cave,
Where waters flow and wild woods wave,

By bonnie Castle Gordon.

Burns conceived the idea of these verses during his too brief visit to Gordon Castle in 1787: he wrote them down as he hurried on to the south, and enclosed them to James Hoyes, then residing with his Grace of Gordon. The duchess guessed them to be written by Dr. Beattie, and when told they were by Burns, wished they had been in the Scottish language. The captious humour of Nicol, it will be remembered, shortened the stay of the Poet in the north." I shall certainly," he says to Hoyes," among my legacies leave my latest curse on that unlucky predicament which hurried-tore me away from Castle Gordon. May that obstinate son of latin prose be curst to Scotch mile periods, and damned to seven league paragraphs: while declension and conjugation, gender, number, and time, under the ragged banners of dissonance and disarrangement, eternally rank against him in hostile array!"

MY HARRY WAS A GALLANT GAY.

Tune-" Highlander's Lament."

I.

My Harry was a gallant gay,

Fu' stately strode he on the plain :
But now he's banish'd far away,
I'll never see him back again.
O for him back again!

O for him back again!

I wad gie a' Knockhaspie's land,
For Highland Harry back again.

II.

When a' the lave gae to their bed,
I wander dowie up the glen;
I set me down and greet my fill,

And ay I wish him back again.

III.

O were some villains hangit high,
And ilka body had their ain!
Then I might see the joyfu' sight,
My Highland Harry back again.
O for him back again!

O for him back again!

I wad gie a' Knockhaspie's land
For Highland Harry back again.

"The oldest title," says Burns, " I ever heard to this air, was 'The Highland Watch's Farewell to Ireland.' The chorus I picked up from an old woman in Dumblane; the rest of the song is mine." Part of the farm of Mossgiel bears the name of Knockhaspie's land: the Poet recollected this when he modified the chorus from recitation it is almost needless to add that "The Highland Watch" is the gallant forty-second regiment: and that Highland Harry was Prince Henry Stuart, the last male of the ancient Scottish line. That prince lived to a good old age, and when he died a monument was raised to his memory at the expense of George IV., sculptured by the skilful hand of Canova.

:

THE TAILOR.

Tune—“ The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a’.”

I.

THE Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a',
The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a';
The blankets were thin, and the sheets they were sma',
The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a'.

II.

The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill,
The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill;
The weather was cauld, and the lassie lay still,
She thought that a tailor could do her nae ill.

Gie me the groat again,

III.

canny young man ; Gie me the groat again, canny young man ; The day it is short, and the night it is lang, The dearest siller that ever I wan!

IV.

There's somebody weary wi' lying her lane ; There's somebody weary wi' lying her lane; There's some that are dowie, I trow wad be fain To see the bit tailor come skippin' again.