Every thing in the Highlands now The sodger dwal at our door cheek, Scotland be turn't an England now, Another law cam after that, Me never saw the like, man: And wow she pe a ponnie road, They sharge a penny for ilka hors, They tak the hors than pe the head, Nae doubts nainsel maun draw his purs, But I'll awa to te Highland hills, DUNCAN GRAY. DUNCAN GRAY cam here to woo, On blythe Yule night, when we were fu', Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd, Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig, Duncan sigh'd baith out and in, Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Time and chance are but a tide, Shall I, like a fool, quoth he, How it comes let doctors tell, Something in her bosom wrings; Duncan was a lad o' grace, Maggie's was a piteous case, Duncan cou'd na be her death, THE BUD ON THE BRIER. TUNE-" The Campbell's are comin'." THE bud on the brier it is bonnie enough, How sweet shines the red setting sun in the stream, The lavrock on the lea-lass, But nane o' them sings like thee-lass. The meeting o' friends may be happy, I own, But rapture ne'er comes frae the ee to the heart, * Dr. BLACKLOCK of Edinburgh informed BURNS that he had often heard the tradition that the air of Duncan Gray was composed by a carman in Glasgow. BURNS himself thought it was "that kind of light-horse gallop of an air that precluded sentiment;"-that "the ludicrous was its ruling feature ;" and accordingly, in writing the above verses for it, he has kept this idea steadily in view. For broad humour the song is certainly unequalled in the Scottish language; and it was with great justice the Hon. A. ERSKINE observed, in a letter to BURNS, that "spak o' lowpin owre a linn" was a line of itself that should make him immortal. The bottle has its charm-lass, In conqu❜ring kingdoms let tyrants unite The love melting kiss that I steal frae thy lips, Then time may flee like wind-lass, POWERS CELESTIAL. POWERS celestial, whose protection Draw your choicest influence down. Make the gales you waft around her, Guardian angels, O protect her, To realms unknown while fate exiles me, home. * ETTRICK BANKS. ON Ettrick banks, on a summer's night, Come wading barefoot a' her lane. *This is a prayer of no common kind. In verses, such as we might suppose to be inspired by scenes as delightful as ever oriental fancy pictured, wishes are breathed for a beloved object which seem to have been dictated by the most pure and fervent passion-a passion cherished and invigorated by the genial warmth of Nature, and hallowed by the holy air of Heaven. The Editor of the Reliques of BURNS, who first brought the verses into light as the production of our Bard, conjectures that they were written on Highland Mary, on the eve of the Poet's intended departure for the West Indies;---a conjecture not at all improbable, although Highland Mary had been dead several years before the Bard thought of emigrating, for a time, in consequence of the unfortunate issue of his affair with Miss ARMOUR: for it is to be observed that, from one of his early effusions formerly given, Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, there is reason to presume that a departure to the West Indies had long been a favourite object with him; and, in the piece immediately under notice, the name of the object, on whose behalf the wishes are uttered, and the allusion to wandering "in distant climes" and "realms unknown," are all in favour of the conjec ture. |