Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/407

Rh The lark that soars to heaven,

The sea-bird on the faem,

Are singing from morn 'till even,

"Brave Cameron's welcome hame."

D'ye mind, my ain dear Mary,

When we hid in the tree,

And saw our Auchnacary,

All flaming fearfully?

The fire was red, red glaring,

And ruefu' was the pine,

And aye you cried despairing,

My father's ha's are gane.

I said, my ain wee Mary,

D'ye see yon cloud sae dun,

That sails aboon the cary,

And hides the weary sun?

Behind yon cloud sae dreary,

Beyond and far within,

There's ane, my dear wee Mary,

That views this deadly sin.

He sees this ruefu' reavery,

The rage of dastard knave;

He saw our deeds of bravery,

And he'll reward the brave.

Though a' we had was given

For loyalty and faith,

I still had hopes that heaven

Would right the heroes' scaith.

The day is dawned in heaven,

For which we a' thought lang;

The good, the just, is given

To right our nation's wrang,

My ain dear Auchnacary,

I ha'e thought lang for thee,

O sing to your harp, my Mary,

And sound its bonniest key.

[ of 's very finest productions was a Scottish paraphrase or imitation of Horace's celebrated 9th Ode, Ad Thaliarcum. It commences thus:

From this ode Ramsay selected the seven concluding verses, and published them in his Tea Table Miscellany as a song, to the tune of "Fye, gar rub her ower wi' strae," adopting the first four lines of that old strain as his opening. "It is self-evident," says Burns, "that the first four lines of this song are part of a song more ancient than Ramsay's beautiful verses which are annexed to them. As music is the language of nature; and poetry, particularly songs, are always less or more localized (if I may be allowed the verb) by some of the modifications of time and place, this is the reason why so many of our Scots airs have outlived their original, and perhaps many subsequent sets of verses; except a single name, or phrase, or sometimes one or two lines, simply to distinguish the tunes by. To this day, among people who know nothing of Ramsay's verses, the following is the song, and all the song that ever I heard:

The tune of "Fye, gar rub her ower wi' strae" is very old. We see it attached to one or two English songs as far back as the beginning of the last century.]

ye meet a bonnie lassie,

Gi'e her a kiss and let her gae;

But if ye meet a dirty hizzie,

Fye, gar rub her ower wi' strae.

Be sure ye dinna quit the grip

Of ilka joy when ye are young,

Before auld age your vitals nip,

And lay ye twa-fauld ower a rung.