Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/29

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[ was first published in the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1724. The author is of Drumsoy, not, as is generally stated, William Crawford of Auchinames. The air is very old. "The Bush aboon Traquair," says Mr. Robert Chambers, a native of the district, "was a small grove of birches that formerly adorned the west bank of the Quair water, in Peebles-shire, about a mile from Traquair house, the seat of the Earl of Traquair. But only a few spectral-looking remains now denote the spot so long celebrated in the popular poetry of Scotland. Leafless even in summer, and scarcely to be observed upon the bleak hill-side, they form a truly melancholy memorial of what must once have been an object of great pastoral beauty, as well as the scene of many such fond attachments as that delineated in the following verses."]

[ beautiful and pathetic "Lament" first appeared in the Scotsman newspaper, about two or three years ago. Its author is .]

the Lammas tide

Had dun'd the birken tree,

In a' our water side

Nae wife was blest like me;

A kind gudeman, and twa

Sweet bairns were round me here,

But they're a' ta'en awa'

Sin' the fa' o' the year.

Sair trouble cam' our gate,

And made me, when it cam'

A bird without a mate,

A ewe without a lamb.

Our hay was yet to maw,

And our corn was to shear,

When they a' dwined awa'

In the fa' o' the year.

I downa look a-field,

For aye I trow I see

The form that was a bield

To my wee bairns and me;

But wind, and weet, and snaw,

They never mair can fear,

Sin' they a' got the ca'

In the fa' o' the year.

Aft on the hill at e'ens

I see him 'mang the ferns,

The lover o' my teens,

The father o' my bairns:

For there his plaid I saw

As gloamin' aye drew near—

But my a's now awa'

Sin' the fa' o' the year.

Our bonnie rigs theirsel'

Reca' my waes to mind,

Our puir dumb beasties tell

O' a' that I ha'e tyned;