Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/197

Rh Fills the dusty peck,

Brings the dusty siller:

I wad gi'e my coatie

For the dusty miller.

is bonnie and blythsome to see,

Wi' the gowd on her brow, an' the light in her e'e;

An' sweet is her summer sang rollin' in glee,

As it thrills the heart-strings o' my fiddle and me.

When the young morning blinks through amang the black cluds,

An' the southland breeze rustles out through the green wuds;

The lark in the lift, and the merl on the tree,

Baith strike the key-note to my fiddle an' me.

When amang the crisp heather upon the hill-side,

Mine e'e fu' o'rapture, my soul fu' o' pride;

The wee heather-lintie an' wild hinny-bee

A' join in the strain wi' my fiddle an' me.

When daunderin' at e'en doun the dark dowie dells.

To cheer the wee gowans, an' charm the wee bells—

The sweet purling rill wimples doun to the sea,

Dancing light to the notes o' my fiddle an' me.

At kirn or at weddin', at tryst or at fair,

There's nae saul-felt music unless we be there;

Wi' a spark in my heart, an' a drap in my e'e,

The vera floor loups to my fiddle an' me.

E'en now when the cauld drift sweeps ower the bleak hill,

An' mony stout hearts sink beneath the fell chill,

What keeps my puir callant alive on my knee.

But twa-three blythe staves frae my fiddle and me.

My fiddle's my life-spring, my fiddle's my a',

She clings to me close when a' else are awa';

Time may force friends to part, he may wyle faes to gree,

Death only can part my auld fiddle an' me.

[ by of Paisley, the author of "Watty and Meg," and the great ornithologist of America. This was a youthful production of Wilson's, and seems to have been occasioned by certain inhospitable treatment which he had received at Auchtertool, a small village in Fifeshire, while travelling the country as a pedlar. His experience of the fatigues of a pedlar's life, and of the indignities to which it was occasionally exposed, was only fitting him all the better for his afterwards glorious career—when he I had to travel through immeasurable tracts of the woods of America, in search of his favourite birds, and subject himself to the unsympathising rudeness of the early settlers there, who could not comprehend the enthusiasm, or be brought to patronize the exertions, of the young naturalist. The song is marked, in the volume of his poems published at Paisley in 1790, to the tune of "One bottle more."]

the village of Lesly with a heart full of glee,

And my pack on my shoulders, I rambled out free,

Resolved that same evening, as Luna was full,

To lodge ten miles distant, in old Auchtertool.

Through many a lone cottage and farm-house I steer'd,

Took their money,and off with my budget I sheer'd;

The road I explored out, without form or rule,

Still asking the nearest to old Auchtertool.

A clown I accosted, inquiring the road,

He stared like an idiot, then roar'd out, "Gude G-d!

Gin ye're ga'n there for quarters, ye're surely a fool,

For there's nought but starvation in auld Auchtertool!"

Unminding his nonsense, my march I pursued,

Till I came to a hill top, where joyful I viev'd,

Surrounded with mountains, and many a white pool,

The small smoky village of old Auchtertool.

At length I arrived at the edge of the town,

As Phœbus behind a high mountain went down;

The clouds gather'd dreary, and weather blew foul,

And I hugg'd myself safe now in old Auchtertool.