Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/272

254 There's Dickey, my cousin, frae Lunnun cam' down,

Wi' fine yellow buskins that dazzled the town;

But, puir deevil, he got ne'er a blink o' my e'e,

Oh! a' body's like to be married but me.

But I saw a lad by yon saughie burn side,

Wha weel wad deserve ony queen for his bride,

Gin I had my will soon his ain I would be,

Oh! a' body's like to be married but me.

I gied him a look, as a kind lassie should,

My frien's, if they kenn'd it, would surely run wud;

For tho' bonnieand guid, he's no worth a bawbee,

Oh! a' body's like to be married but me.

'Tis hard to tak' shelter behint a laigh dyke,

'Tis hard for to tak' ane we never can like,

'Tis hard for to leave ane we fain wad be wi'

Yet it is harder that a' should be married but me.

[ sung by Mr. Mackay, in the Opera of "Rob Roy."—Air, "Quaker's Wife."]

mother sang a plaintive song,

Which winter nights beguiled;

And as its echo died along,

She wept, and yet she smiled.

I clasped my infant hands, and crept

Close to her parent knee,

And then I'd weep because she wept,

Yet wondered why 't might be.

My child, she said, I hear her yet,

Her kind eye bent on mine;

Thou'rt young, and dost perchance forget

That native land of thine,

That lies beneath the polar ray,

Far on the dark blue sea—

A land of heath and mountain grey,

But far from you and me.

I was a little child, like you,

When first I heard that strain,

And oft I dream of fountains blue,

And it comes back again;

And with it comes a broken font

Of tears, I deemed was dry;

Old faces, voices, come as wont,

And will not pass me by.

Your father, boy, loved that sweet trill—

He said I sung it well;

And why I weep to hear it still,

Fond memory can tell.

You were an infant when he left

His home for hostile shore—

The sword your father's life bereft—

I never saw him more.