Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/381

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[ by, otherwise called Mrs. Murray Keith, a lady whom Sir Walter Scott has portrayed in the Introduction to the Chronicles of the Canongate, under the name of Mrs. Bethune Baliol. She was born in 1736, and died in April, 1818. In a letter to Terry, dated 18th April, 1818, Sir Walter says, "You will be sorry to hear that we have lost our excellent old friend, Mrs. Murray Keith. Much tradition, and of the very best kind, has died with this excellent old lady; one of the few persons whose spirits and cleanliness, and freshness of mind and body, made old age lovely and desirable."—The music to "Oscar's Ghost" is by Mrs. Tough.]

that form that faintly gleams!

'Tis Oscar come to cheer my dreams!

On wings of wind he flies away;

O stay, my lovely Oscar, stay!

Wake, Ossian, last of Fingal's line,

And mix thy tears and sighs with mine;

Awake the harp to doleful lays,

And soothe my soul with Oscar's praise.

The shell is ceased in Oscar's hall,

Since gloomy Kerbar wrought his fall;

The roe on Morven lightly bounds,

Nor hears the cry of Oscar's hounds.

[.—Air, "The Highland Watch."]

muir, Culloden field,

Long wilt thou be remember'd:

On thee the hero nobly fell,

And with the dead was number'd;

On thee the dearest blood was shed,

By numbers doubled fairly;

On thee the clans of Scotland bled

For their dear royal Charlie.

Thy broad brown sward that day was dyed,

The howes were clotted o'er;

From gaping wounds incessant flow'd

The red, red-reeking gore:

Thou drank'st the precious blood of those

Who fought that day fu' sairly,

A glorious day for Scotland's foes,

Eventful for prince Charlie!

Oh! Charlie, noble, gallant youth,

Thy memory Scots revere;

They loved thee with the warmest truth,

Their hearts were all sincere:

But traitor knaves, with brib'ry base,

Made death's darts fly fu' rarely,

And Scotland lang will mind the place

She lost her royal Charlie.

[ tune of "Jumpin' John," or "Joan's Placket," is very old, and is thought to be the progenitor of the Irish air called "Lillibulero." There is a tradition that "Jumpin' John" was the tune played when Mary Queen of Scots was proceeding to her execution, but on this no reliance can be placed, as it is very unlikely that music of any kind was played on that melancholy occasion, and no contemporary accounts of her death speak of music having been employed. Part of the following words are old, and part modern.]

daddie forbade, her minnie forbade,

Forbidden she wadna be;

She wadna trow't, the brows't she brew'd

Wad taste sae bitterlie.

The lang lad, they ca' Jumpin' John,

Aft spier'd the bonnie lassie;

But faither and mither agreed thegither,

That nae sic match sud be.

Her daddie, &c.

A cow and a cauf, a ewe and a hauf,

And thretty gude shillins and three;

A vera gude tocher, a cotter man's dochter,

The lass wi' the bonnie black e'e.

Her daddie, &c.

Her daddie bade her counsel tak',

But counsel she tuik nane;

And lang and sair the lassie rued,

Sae fuil-like she'd been taen.

Her daddie, &c.