sae bonnie, the second alone was his own production. An- But I'll big a bower on yon green bank other stanza was interpolated by the Poet in his second and improved version, which is alone here given, and the pathetic tenderness of which he greatly enhanced by one or two delicate emendations.] O WHARE gat ye that bonnie blue bonnet? O what makes them aye put the question to me? I got it frae a bonnie Scots callan, Atween St. Johnston and bonnie O gin I saw the laddie that ga'e me 't! May Heaven protect my bonnie Scots laddie, That's laved by the waters o' Tay wimplin' clear, And cleed thee in tartans, my wee smiling Johnnie, And make thee a man like thy daddie dear. THE JOYFUL WIDOWER. [This is the ninety-eighth song in Johnson's collection, and is presumably, though not quite certainly, from the hand of Burns. To no one An send him safe hame to his babie else can it be traced, and the original manu script is in his handwriting.] Tune-" Maggie Lauder." I MARRIED with a scolding wife Long did I bear the heavy yoke, And many griefs attended; We lived full one-and-twenty years A man and wife together; Would I could guess, I do profess— Thy smiles are sae like my blithe sodger Her body is bestowed well, laddie, Thou's aye the dearer and dearer to But sure her soul is not in hell me. The de'il could ne'er abide her. O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad, lad; Though father and mither and a' should gae mad, [The merest rough outline of its refrain was O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my all that was first issued by Burns of this famous song, which has since made the tour of both hemispheres. It was contributed by him, in that elementary form, to Johnson's Museum, towards the close of 1787, and it was nearly six years afterwards, in the August of 1793, that the Poet despatched to Thomson the complete version of the lyric here subjoined.] But warily tent when ye come to court me, And come na unless the back-yett be ajee; Syne up the back-stile, and let naebody see, And come as ye were na comin' to me. O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad. I'M OWRE YOUNG TO MARRY YET. [Both the saucy chorus and the sprightly air of the following song were very old, but with them Burns associated new words, which, slightly O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my modified to adapt them to ears polite, obtained, lad, two generations back, a wild popularity.] O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad; Tune-"I'm owre young to marry yet." Though father and mither and a' should I AM my mammy's ae bairn, gae mad, Wi' unco folk I weary, Sir; O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my And lying in [anither's] bed, lad. At kirk or at market, whene'er ye meet me, Gang by me as though that ye cared na a flie; I'm fleyed 't wad mak' me eerie, Sir. S My mammy coft me a new gown, I'm feared ye'd spoil the lacing o't. Hallowmas is come and gane, The nights are lang in winter, Sir; In trowth I dare na venture, Sir. Fu' loud and shrill the frosty wind [I'm owre young to marry yet; While o'er their heads the hazels hing, The braes ascend like lofty wa's, Bonnie lassie, &c. The hoary cliffs are crowned wi' flowers, Bonnie lassie, &c. Let Fortune's gifts at random flee, Bonnie lassie, will ye go, THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY. [During his Highland tour in the September of 1787, Burns, while passing near Moness, in Perthshire, paused by the Birks of Aberfeldy and composed these lovely verses, the choral refrain of which is but the echo of an old ditty in celebration of the Birks of Abergeldy.] Tune-"The Birks of Abergeldy." Now simmer blinks on flowery braes, And o'er the crystal streamlet plays; Come, let us spend the lightsome days In the birks of Aberfeldy. Bonnie lassie, will ye go, To the birks of Aberfeldy? MACPHERSON'S FAREWELL. [A namesake of Ossian's popularizer, James Macpherson, was the hero of this roystering death song. He was a freebooter, half of gipsy, half of patrician lineage, who gamely died the death at the hands of the public hangman at Banff, on the 16th of November, 1700. But little more than a week after the date of his conviction, before being swung from the beam, he performed on his favourite violin the melody with which his memory has ever since been associated; and then, after dancing a Highland fling round the gallows, broke the instrument on which he had been playing over the head of his executioner! Here, as in the instances of many |