No. XXV.

BURNS TO G. THOMSON.

June 25th, 1793.

HAVE you ever, my dear Sir, 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," and it occurred to me that its querulous melody probably had its origin from the plaintive indignation of some swelling, suffering heart, fired at the tyrannic strides of some public destroyer, and overwhelmed with private distress, the consequence of a country's ruin. If I have done any thing 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:

LOGAN WATER.

I.

O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide,
That day I was my Willie's bride!
And years sinsyne 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!

II.

Again the merry month o' May
Has made our hills and valleys gay;
The birds rejoice in leafy bowers,

The bees hum round the breathing flowers:
Blythe morning lifts his rosy eye,

And evening's tears are tears of joy:
My soul, delightless, a' surveys,
While Willie's far frae Logan braes.

III.

Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush,
Amang her nestlings sits the thrush;
Her faithfu' mate will share her toil,
Or wi' his song her cares beguile :
But I, wi' my sweet nurslings here,
Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer,
Pass widow'd nights and joyless days,
While Willie's far frae Logan braes.

IV.

O wae upon you, men o' state,

That brethren rouse to deadly hate!

As
ye make mony a
Sae may it on your heads return!

fond heart mourn,

How can your flinty hearts enjoy
The widow's tears, the orphan's cry?*
But soon may peace bring happy days
And Willie hame to Logan braes!

[Burns in one of his letters says, "I remember the two last lines of a verse in some of the old songs of Logan water, which I think pretty :

"Now my dear lad maun face his faes,

Far, far frae me and Logan braes."

These lines belong to the "Logan braes" of my friend John Mayne: the song was printed in the Star newspaper of May 23, 1789, and soon became a favourite, as it well might :

-

"By Logan streams that rin sae deep,
Fu' aft wi' glee I've herded sheep:
I've herded sheep, or gathered slaes,
Wi' my dear lad on Logan braes.
But waes my heart thae days are gane,
And fu' o' grief I herd my lane;
While my dear lad maun face his faes,
Far, far frae me and Logan braes.

"Nae mair at Logan kirk will he
Atween the preachings meet wi' me-
Meet wi' me, or when it's mirk,
Convoy me hame frae Logan kirk.
I weel may sing thae days are gane,
Frae kirk and fair, I come my lane;
While my dear lad maun face his faes,
Far, far frae me and Logan braes."

The old verses to the same air, on which the modern songs are founded, will be given in the Poet's notes on Scottish song-they are curious.-Ed.]

* Originally

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

Do you know the following beautiful little fragment, in Witherspoon's collection of Scots songs?

Air-" Hughie Graham."

"O gin my love were yon red rose,
That grows upon the castle wa';

And I mysel' a drap o' dew,

Into her bonnie breast to fa'!

"Oh, there beyond expression blest,
I'd feast on beauty a' the night;
Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
Till fley'd awa by Phoebus' light."

This thought is inexpressibly beautiful; and quite, so far as I know, original. It is too short for a song, else I would forswear you altogether, unless you gave it a place. I have often tried to eke a stanza to it, but in vain. After balancing myself for a musing five minutes, on the hind-legs of my elbow-chair, I produced the following.

The verses are far inferior to the foregoing, I frankly confess; but if worthy of insertion at all, they might be first in place; as every poet, who knows any thing of his trade, will husband his best thoughts for a concluding stroke.

O were my love yon lilac fair,

Wi' purple blossoms to the spring;
And I, a bird to shelter there,

When wearied on my little wing!

How I wad mourn, when it was torn
By autumn wild, and winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing,

When youthfu' May its bloom renewed.

[There are fragments of song of a nature so exquisitely fine, that, like the purest marble, they cannot be eked out or repaired without showing where the hand of the restorer has been. Burns, though eminently skilful, has not succeeded in writing a verse worthy of the one preserved by Witherspoon: his lines are beautiful: but lilacs are not favourites with birds: the odour of their blossoms is unpleasing to the musicians of the air, and they seldom build in them or seek them out as a shelter. Tradition has many verses, some tender, others ludicrous, which I have heard sung as additions to the old fragment:

"O were my love yon pickle leeks,

That's growing in the garden green;
And I were but the gardener lad-
I wad lie near the leeks at e'en.

"O were my love yon fragrant gean,

That hangs sae drap ripe on the tree;

And I were but yon little bird

Far wi' that fragrant gean I'd flee."—ED.]