["Have you ever, my dear sir," says Burns to Thomson, 25th June, 1793, "felt your bosom ready to burst with indignation on reading of those mighty villains who divide kingdom against kingdom, desolate provinces, and lay nations waste, out of the wantonness of ambition, or often from still more ignoble passions? In a mood of this kind to-day I recollected the air of Logan Water. If I have done anything at all like justice to my feelings, the following song, composed in three-quarters of an hour's meditation in my elbow-chair, ought to have some merit." The poet had in mind, too, during this poetic fit, the beautiful song of Logan-braes, by my friend John Mayne, a Nithsdale poet.]

I.

O LOGAN, Sweetly didst thou glide,
That day I was my Willie's bride!
And years synsyne hae o'er us run,
Like Logan to the simmer sun.
But now thy flow'ry banks appear
Like drumlie winter, dark and drear,
While my dear lad maun face his faes,
Far, far frae me and Logan braes!

CXCVII.

THE RED, RED ROSE.

Air-"Hughie Graham."

[There are snatches of old song so exquisitely fine that, like fractured crystal, they cannot be mended or eked out, without showing where the hand of the restorer has been. This seems the case with the first verse of this song, which the poet found in Witherspoon, and completed by the addition of the second verse, which he felt to be inferior, by desiring Thomson to make his own the first verse, and let the other follow, which would conclude the strain with a thought as beautiful as it was original.]

I.

O WERE my love yon lilac fair,

Wi' purple blossoms to the spring;

And I, a bird to shelter there, When weared on my little wing!

1 Originally

"Ye mind na, 'mid your cruel joys, The widow's tears, the orphan's cries.”

[Jean M'Murdo, the heroine of this song, the eldest daughter of John M'Murdo of Drumlanrig, was, both in merit and look, very worthy of so sweet a strain, and justified the poet from the charge made against him in the West, that his beauties were not other men's beauties. In the M'Murdo manuscript, in Burns's handwriting, there is a well-merited compliment which has slipt out of the printed copy in Thomson :

"Thy handsome foot thou shalt na set
In barn or byre to trouble thee."]

I.

THERE was a lass, and she was fair,

At kirk and market to be seen, When a' the fairest maids were met, The fairest maid was bonnie Jean.

VIII.

But did na Jeanie's heart loup light,
And did na joy blink in her e'e,
As Robie tauld a tale of love,
Ae e'enin' on the lily lea?

IX.

The sun was sinking in the west,
The birds sang sweet in ilka grove;
His cheek to hers he fondly prest,
And whisper'd thus his tale o' love:

X.

O Jeanie fair, I lo'e thee dear;
O canst thou think to fancy me!
Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot,
And learn to tent the farms wi' me?

III.

The haunt o' Spring's the primrose brae,
The Simmer joys the flocks to follow;
How cheery, thro' her shortening day,
Is Autumn, in her weeds o' yellow!
But can they melt the glowing heart,

Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure, Or thro' each nerve the rapture dart,

Like meeting her, our bosom's treasure?

CCII.

O WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU.

[In one of the variations of this song the name of the heroine is Jeanie: the song itself owes some of the sentiments as well as words to an old favourite Nithsdale chant of the same name. "Is Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad," Burns inquires of Thomson, "one of your airs? I admire it much, and yesterday I set the following verses to it." The poet, two years afterwards, altered the fourth line thus:

"Thy Jeany will venture wi' ye, my lad,"

and assigned this reason: " In fact, a fair dame at whose shrine I, the priest of the Nine, offer up the incense of Parnassus; a dame whom the Graces ha e attired in witchcraft, and whom the Loves have armed with lightning; a fair one, herself the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment, and dispute her commands if you dare."]

I.

O WHISTLE, and I'll come to you, my lad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad:
Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.
But warily tent, when you come to court me,
And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee;
Syne up the back-stile and let naebody see,
And come as ye were na comin' to me.
And come as ye were na comin' to me.

II.

At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me,
Gang by me as tho' that ye car'd na a flie;
But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black e'e,
Yet look as ye were na lookin' at me.
Yet look as ye were na lookin' at me.

III.

Ay vow and protest that ye care na for me,
And whiles ye may lightly my beauty a wee;
But court na anither, tho' jokin' ye be,
For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me.
For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me.

O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad:
Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.

CCIII.

ADOWN WINDING NITH.

["Mr. Clarke," says Burns to Thomson, "begs you to give Miss Phillis a corner in your book, as she is a par ticular flame of his. She is a Miss Phillis M'Murdo, sister to 'Bonnie Jean;' they are both pupils of his." This lady afterwards became Mrs. Norman Lockhart, of Carnwath.]

I.

ADOWN winding Nith I did wander,
To mark the sweet flowers as they spring;
Adown winding Nith I did wander,

Of Phillis to muse and to sing.
Awa wi' your belles and your beauties,
They never wi' her can compare:
Whaever has met wi' my Phillis,

Has met wi' the queen o' the fair.

II.

The daisy amus'd my fond fancy, So artless, so simple, so wild; Thou emblem, said I, o' my Phillis, For she is simplicity's child.

III.

The rose-bud's the blush o' my charmer, Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest: How fair and how pure is the lily,

But fairer and purer her breast.

IV.

Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour,
They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie:
Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine,
Its dew-drop o' diamond, her eye.

V.

Her voice is the song of the morning,

That wakes thro' the green-spreading grove, When Phoebus peeps over the mountains, On music, and pleasure, and love.

VI.

But beauty how frail and how fleeting, The bloom of a fine summer's day!' While worth in the mind o' my Phillis Will flourish without a decay.

CCV.

CCVI.

BRUCE TO HIS MEN AT BANNOCKBURN,

[FIRST VERSION.]

Tune-"Hey, tuttie taitie.”

[Syme of Ryedale states that this fine ode was composed during a storm of rain and fire, among the wilds of Glenken in Galloway: the poet himself gives an account much less romantic. In speaking of the air to Thomson, he says, "There is a tradition which I have met with in many places in Scotland, that it was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought, in my solitary wanderings, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and independence, which I threw into a kind of Scottish ode, fitted to the air, that