Page:The Book of Scottish Song.djvu/43

Rh Bid us sigh on from day to day,

And wish, and wish—the soul away;

Till youth and genial years are flown,

And all the life of life is gone.

But busy, busy, still art thou,

To bind the loveless joyless vow,

The heart from pleasure to delude,

And join the gentle to the rude.

For once, oh, Fortune, hear my prayer,

And I absolve thy future care;

All other blessings I resign,

Make but the dear Amanda mine.

[ following are words to the tune of Logan Water. They were written four years after the appearance of Mayne's song, and sent to Thomson's collection. Burns was ignorant of Mayne's production at the time, but had heard the burthen of it,—

and adopted the lines as a fragment of an old song.]

[ appeared in one of the early Noctes Ambrosianæ of Blackwood's Magazine (the Royal Number of 1822.) It is probably from the pen of .]

lightning parts the thunder-cloud,

That blackens all the sea,

And tempests sough through sail and shroud

Ev'n then I'll think on thee, Mary.

I wrap me in that keepsake plaid,

And lie down amang the snaw;

While frozen are the tears I shed,

For him that's far awa, Willie!

We sail past monie a bonnie isle;

Wi' maids the shores are thrang;

Before my e'e there's but ae smile,

Within my ear ae sang, Mary.

In kirk, on every Sabbath-day

For ane on the great deep,

Unto my God I humbly pray—

And while I pray, I weep, Willie.

The sands are bright wi' golden shells,

The groves wi' blossoms fair;

And I think upon the heather-bells,

That deck thy glossy hair, Mary.

I read thy letters sent from far,

And aft I kiss thy name,

And ask my Maker, frae the war

If ever thou'lt come hame, Willie.