Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/239

Rh The courteous red-breast, he

With leaves will cover me,

And sing my elegy

With doleful voice.

And when a ghost I am,

I'll visit thee,

Oh, thou deceitful dame,

Whose cruelty

Has kill'd the kindest heart

That e'er felt Cupid's dart,

And never can desert

From loving thee!

[ by for Thomson's collection, to the tune of "Robin Adair". The poet, in composing the song, had in his mind a passage in the history of his friend Cunningham, who was jilted by his sweetheart under peculiar circumstances of aggravation.]

I a cave on some wild distant shore,

Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar:

There would I weep my woes,

There seek my lost repose,

Till grief my eyes should close,

Ne'er to wake more.

Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare,

All thy fond-plighted vows—fleeting as air!

To thy new lover hie,

Laugh o'er thy perjury,

Then in thy bosom try

What peace is there!

[ written by, for Thomson's collection, to the tune of "Robin Adair." The Phillis here celebrated was Miss Phillis Macmurdo, afterwards Mrs Norman Lockhart of Carnwath, who died in 1825.]

larks with little wing

Fann'd the pure air,

Tasting the breathing spring,

Forth I did fare;

Gay the sun's golden eye,

Peep'd o'er the mountains high;

Such thy morn! did I cry,

Phillis the fair.

In each bird's careless song,

Glad did I share;

While yon wild flowers among,

Chance led me there.

Sweet to the opening day,

Rosebuds bent the dewy spray;

Such thy bloom! did I say,

Phillis the fair.

Down in a shady walk,

Doves cooing were:

I marked the cruel hawk

Caught in a snare.

So kind may fortune be,

Such make his destiny!

He who would injure thee,

Phillis the fair.

[ is another song written by, for Thomson s collection, in honour of Miss Phillis or Philadelphia Macmurdo. It is adapted to the tune called "The Mucking o' Geordie's Byre." The tune has its name from an old song, the subject of which was the complaint of a young lady (said to be a baronet's daughter) who, about the beginning of the last century, married one of her father's tenants. Being disowned by her family, she was obliged to submit to the drudgery of menial labour. The two first verses are all that can be quoted.

Balloon Tytler wrote a version of the old song, beginning, "As I went over yon meadow," but it is very poor. In the Orpheus Caledonius, (1725,) the tune is given to different words, beginning, "My father's a delver of dykes." These words Ramsay partially adopted in his song entitled